Digital Privacy and Consumer Protection Group
Calls on FTC, FCC and California Regulators to Investigate
Connected TV Practices
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- The Connected TV (CTV) video streaming industry in
the U.S. operates a massive data-driven surveillance apparatus that
has transformed the television set into a sophisticated monitoring,
tracking and targeting device, according to a new report from the
Center for Digital Democracy (CDD). How TV Watches Us:
Commercial Surveillance in the Streaming Era documents how CTV
captures and harvests information on individuals and families
through a sophisticated and expansive commercial surveillance
system, deliberately incorporating many of the data-gathering,
monitoring, and targeting practices that have long undermined
privacy and consumer protection online.
The report highlights a number of recent trends that
are key to understanding today's connected TV operations:
- Leading streaming video programming networks, CTV device
companies and "smart" TV manufacturers, allied with many of the
country's most powerful data brokers, are creating extensive
digital dossiers on viewers based on a person's identity
information, viewing choices, purchasing patterns, and thousands of
online and offline behaviors.
- So-called FAST channels (Free Advertiser-Supported TV)—such
as Tubi, Pluto TV, and many others—are now ubiquitous on CTV,
and a key part of the industry's strategy to monetize viewer data
and target them with sophisticated new forms of interactive
marketing.
- Comcast/NBCU, Disney, Amazon, Roku, LG and other CTV companies
operate cutting-edge advertising technologies that gather, analyze
and then target consumers with ads, delivering them to households
in milliseconds. CTV has unleashed a powerful arsenal of
interactive advertising techniques, including virtual product
placement inserted into programming and altered in real
time. Generative AI enables marketers to produce thousands
of instantaneous "hypertargeted variations" personalized for
individual viewers.
- Surveillance has been built directly into television sets, with
major manufacturers' "smart TVs" deploying automatic
content recognition (ACR) and other monitoring software
to capture "an extensive, highly granular, and intimate amount of
information that, when combined with contemporary identity
technologies, enables tracking and ad targeting at the individual
viewer level," the report explains.
- Connected television is now integrated with online shopping
services and offline retail outlets, creating a seamless commercial
and entertainment culture through a number of techniques, including
what the industry calls "shoppable ad formats" incorporated into
programming and designed to prompt viewers to "purchase their
favorite items without disrupting their viewing experience,"
according to industry materials.
The report profiles major players in the connected TV industry,
along with the wide range of technologies they use to monitor and
target viewers. For example:
- Comcast's NBCUniversal division has developed its own
data-driven ad-targeting system called "One Platform Total
Audience." It powers NBCU's "streaming activation" of consumers
targeted across "300 end points," including their streaming video
programming and mobile phone use. Advertisers can use the "machine
learning and predictive analytics" capabilities of One Platform,
including its "vast… first-party identity spine" that can be
coupled with their own data sets "to better reach the consumers who
matter most to brands." NBCU's "Identity graph houses more than 200
million individuals 18+, more than 90 million households, and more
than 3,000 behavioral attributes that can be accessed for strategic
audience targeting."
- The Walt Disney Company has developed a state-of the-art
big-data and advertising system for its video operations, including
through Disney+ and its "kids" content. Its materials promise to
"leverage streaming behavior to build brand affinity and reward
viewers" using tools such as the "Disney Audience Graph—consisting
of millions of households, CTV and digital device IDs…
continually refined and enhanced based on the numerous ways Disney
connects with consumers daily." The company claims that its ID
Graph incorporates 110 million households and 260 million device
IDs that can be targeted for advertising using "proprietary" and
"precision" advertising categories "built from 100,000 [data]
attributes."
- Set manufacturer Samsung TV promises advertisers a wealth
of data to reach their targets, deploying a variety of surveillance
tools, including an ACR technology system that "identifies what
viewers are watching on their TV on a regular basis," and gathers
data from a spectrum of channels, including "Linear TV, Linear Ads,
Video Games, and Video on Demand." It can also determine which
viewers are watching television in English, Spanish, or other
languages, and the specific kinds of devices that are connected to
the set in each home.
"The transformation of television in the digital era has taken
place over the last several years largely under the radar of
policymakers and the public, even as concerns about internet
privacy and social media have received extensive media coverage,"
the report explains. "The U.S. CTV streaming business has
deliberately incorporated many of the data-surveillance marketing
practices that have long undermined privacy and consumer protection
in the 'older' online world of social media, search engines, mobile
phones and video services such as YouTube." The industry's
self-regulatory regimes are highly inadequate, the report authors
argue. "Millions of Americans are being forced to accept unfair
terms in order to access video programming, which threatens their
privacy and may also narrow what information they access—including
the quality of the content itself. Only those who can afford to pay
are able to 'opt out' of seeing most of the ads—although much of
their data will still be gathered."
The massive surveillance and targeting practices of today's
contemporary connected TV industry raise a number of concerns, the
report explains. For example, during this election year, CTV has
become the fastest growing medium for political ads. "Political
campaigns are taking advantage of the full spectrum of ad-tech,
identity, data analysis, monitoring and tracking tools deployed by
major brands." While these tools are no doubt a boon to campaigns,
they also make it easy for candidates and other political actors to
"run covert personalized campaigns, integrating detailed
information about viewing behaviors, along with a host of
additional (and often sensitive) data about a voter's political
orientations, personal interests, purchasing patterns, and
emotional states. With no transparency or oversight," the authors
warn, "these practices could unleash millions of personalized,
manipulative and highly targeted political ads, spread
disinformation, and further exacerbate the political polarization
that threatens a healthy democratic culture in the U.S."
"CTV has become a privacy nightmare for viewers," explained
report co-author Jeff Chester, who
is the executive director of CDD. "It is now a core asset for the
vast system of digital surveillance that shapes most of our online
experiences. Not only does CTV operate in ways that are unfair to
consumers, it is also putting them and their families at risk as it
gathers and uses sensitive data about health, children, race and
political interests," Chester noted. "Regulation is urgently needed
to protect the public from constantly expanding and unfair data
collection and marketing practices," he said, "as well as to ensure
a competitive, diverse and equitable marketplace for
programmers."
"Policy makers, scholars, and advocates need to pay close
attention to the changes taking place in today's 21st
century television industry," argued report co-author Kathryn C. Montgomery, Ph.D. "In addition to
calling for strong consumer and privacy safeguards," she urged, "we
should seize this opportunity to re-envision the power and
potential of the television medium and to create a policy framework
for connected TV that will enable it to do more than serve the
needs of advertisers. Our future television system in the United States should support and sustain a
healthy news and information sector, promote civic engagement, and
enable a diversity of creative expression to flourish."
CDD is submitting letters today to the chairs of the FTC and
FCC, as well as the California
Attorney General and the California Privacy Protection Agency,
calling on policymakers to address the report's findings and
implement effective regulations for the CTV industry.
CDD's mission is to ensure that digital technologies serve and
strengthen democratic values, institutions and processes. CDD
strives to safeguard privacy and civil and human rights, as well as
to advance equity, fairness, and community.
Contact: Jeff Chester,
202-494-7100 Jeff@democraticmedia.org
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SOURCE Center for Digital Democracy