Just when we thought that only our smartphones and virtual assistants keep track of our activities, a new study pops up. The research suggests that the popular over-the-top services we use to watch web content we like, track us, and keep an eye on us while we keep ours on them.
Yes, OTT Services Track Us!
The study was conducted by researchers at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. Among the various OTT services, Roku and Amazon Fire TV track users and extract the user data. Thus, affecting the numerous internet-connected smart TVs.
OTT Services come equipped with data trackers; while 69% of Roku channels have trackers, Amazon Fire TV has 89% of its channels injected with trackers. The OTT services were found contacting around 60 tracking domains for data sharing.
These services heavily rely on behavioral advertising for monetization and collect user data such as device IDs, serial numbers, WiFi MAC addresses, and SSIDs. The data also includes microphone input, viewing history, and personal information of users.
Apart from targeted advertising, the data can be provided to various app developers, thus, contributing to an act of data breach.
Furthermore, it was discovered that the local remote control APIs for OTT services are prone to a glitch. The flaw extracts users’ location, retrieves installed channels, installs new channels, and access device identifiers.
How Researchers Figured This Out?
The research paper suggests that the researchers involved in the study developed an automated system. The bot loaded 1000 channels on Roku and Amazon Fire TV each, and collected channel information from the OTT channel stores.
..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
