Streaming devices are now the norm, along with platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Max and other streaming services that enable us to connect and watch TV with convenience. While there are top-quality options from Apple, Roku, Google Chromecast and Amazon, it’s essential to be aware that these devices track your viewing habits in the background, despite their amazing features.
Every major smart TV streaming platform captures your viewing data. Makers of software and hardware (from your new streaming stick to your TV itself) use that data to “improve” the products and services they offer, by tailoring recommendations and the ads they show you, for example. While that’s potentially frustrating, ads do help keep the price down when you’re buying a new streaming stick.
While we’ve previously covered privacy settings for the TVs themselves, for this story we checked out all of the latest software on streaming devices from Amazon, Roku, Google and Apple.
Here’s what we found and what you can do about it on your respective new streaming players.
Amazon Fire TV Stick
Amazon told CNET that it collects limited information about customers’ use of third-party apps on Fire TV. “We collect data on the frequency and duration of use of apps on Fire TV (i.e., when a customer opens or closes an app), which helps with service and device improvements. We don’t collect information about what customers watch in third-party apps on Fire TV.”
Amazon’s privacy policy says that your Amazon device also “collects data about your use of the device and its features, such as your navigation of the home screen [and] selection of device settings (such as device language, display size, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth options).”
Here’s how you limit the amount of data Fire TV collects. All settings can be found by going to Settings, then Preferences, then Privacy Settings.
- Choose Device Usage Data and turn this setting off.
- Go to Collect App Usage Data and turn this setting off.
- Select…
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