alt Hacker NewsI believe you on the aggressive WiFi scanning but I’d have to see concrete proof about the phone part to believe it. Draining users phone batteries via WiFi hotspot functionality that the phone doesn’t even show to the user would be a very big deal.
I imagine if they were going to strike a deal with the phone companies they’d just embed cell chips in the TVs and connect directly.
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I don't know if they do it either, but if they use hashes they are in no way draining the battery of someone's phone to send a few bytes every so often. That's not me saying it's okay, mind you.
I've told myself if they start putting 5G in TVs I would either glue a faraday mesh to the back or open up the TV and ground out the antenna or remove the WiFi chip if possible.
If they would keep the spying to matching my shows with programs that are being aired or on popular streaming services, sports, or whether I mute the commercials, that wouldn't bother me. Screen grabs would , especially if I use it on my computer. But history has shown this starts off benign and eventually devolve into listening to the room at all hours and keeping it forever in a Bluffdale data center because "think of the children" / "national security".
There used to be several different things for free wifi for subscribers that also got used by national networks. Cellco, AT&Ts home boxes had open wifi that was available to any AT&T subscriber for wi-fi calling, etc.