alt Hacker NewsDid I consent someplace to having my TV tell its manufacturer that I am using an Amazon fire stick? No? Then it's wrong for my TV to send that info out.
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My LG TV did pop up asking for EULA consent before being able to use WebOS. I did not consent to microphone terms (which has the infamous terms saying it’s your responsibility not to break eavesdropping laws). So the microphone function doesn’t work, which is fine.
The EULA terms I did agree to likely had a clause allowing for returning the TV to not be a contract of cohesion. As for why I consented to ACR, I guess I have a lot going on and privacy (for, say, location data) in a contractual way is difficult.
Supposedly the LG TV does not send ACR data out without agreeing to the EULA. It gets into non-falsifiablity to just say “duh, of course they do.” Well, it’s what they say and there’s no evidence they do if the EULA isn’t agreed.
Now the fire stick and its services have their own EULAs.
The libertarian contractual ideology obviously falls apart in real-world conditions. I had to agree to a lengthy contract to pay for parking after I had already parked. I had to rely on unconscionablity or some practicality (I.e. assuming I didn’t sign over one million dollars in the parking EULA) to get through my day.
We need to differentiate "actually consented" versus "clicked accept on an intentionally misleading, long EULA that popped up on the screen once".
These companies get away with these things in part because they can point to users accepting some agreement by using the service where clause 12 subsection 4 addendum C says they can do it, using some terminology nobody reads or understands.