I spent $3k on a Samsung Smart TV and all I got were ads and unwanted content

The sentiment here on HN is to never connect the TV to the Internet and instead use a digital media player or external streaming device. I wholeheartedly agree. But then several people mentioned wanting to update the firmware. If you&#x27;ll never connect it to the Internet, then you should never update the firmware either. It goes against conventional wisdom, but updating the firmware in this situation is more likely to cause problems than to bring you desired improvements.<p>The firmware update might have stricter DRM controls; it could have a tricky new way to exfiltrate data out via your streaming box; maybe the firmware update itself contains some static ads; perhaps in the near future we&#x27;ll have public wifi or free Google community wifi, and the new firmware will have the smarts to use that and bypass your wifi.<p>And these days, once you update the firmware, you often cannot revert back to earlier firmware.

<i>Just give me my Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, HBO Max,...</i><p>All of which are available on an AppleTV, and I assume other less-intrusive devices. TFA comes to that conclusion in the last paragraph, but just in case anyone didn&#x27;t make it that far. And then, as everyone on this page is going to say, never let that TV anywhere near a network connection. Why anyone would go to the effort of dicking with a pi-hole cat-and-mouse game is beyond me. Plug in a box, remove network access to the TV, watch your shows.<p><i>...even if it duplicates all the streaming app functionality in the TV itself.</i><p>I don&#x27;t know, Samsung&#x27;s fuckery aside, does anyone seriously think that using the duplicate app on the Samsung is going to be anywhere nearly as pleasant a UX as the AppleTV? IOW, use the AppleTV (or Roku, or whatever) regardless just for the better experience.

I own this exact model -- the QN90A, though in a smaller size -- and have had exactly the same experience.<p>The most maddening advertisement is the one that is forcibly inserted in the menu between the apps and the settings. Using the remote, you must literally click past an ad to switch inputs.<p>You ... must ... click ... past ... an ... ad ... to ... switch ... inputs. Every time.<p>Unbelievable for a TV that costs this much. I almost returned it, but as the author notes, the alternatives have worse picture quality and often aren&#x27;t any better in the ad department.

Corporate slogan of the 21st century: Why settle for some of your customer&#x27;s money when you can get all of your customer&#x27;s money (and monetize their data too)?<p>Microtransactions, ads, selling customer usage data, up-front costs, PPV, subscriptions... I&#x27;m shocked we as customers can actually afford to obtain and use any of these devices anymore.

I worked for Samsung for ten years and will never buy a Samsung product. It&#x27;s pretty simple, their product support is shit. I will defend the people I worked with in Semiconductor to my dying breath but nope out on the consumer products like they&#x27;re lava.<p>Their UI&#x2F;UX is also pretty atrocious across the board, so I can imagine what their TVs are like.<p>I have a big 2022 Sony Bravia smart TV and while there are some suggestions on the home page, I would not call them intrusive at all.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;RootMyTV&#x2F;RootMyTV.github.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;RootMyTV&#x2F;RootMyTV.github.io</a><p><i>&gt; RootMyTV is a user-friendly exploit for rooting&#x2F;jailbreaking LG webOS smart TV. It bootstraps the installation of the webOS Homebrew Channel ... At the time of writing (RootMyTV v2 - 2022-01-05), all webOS versions between 4.x and 6.2+ we tested (TVs released between early-2018 and late-2021) are supported by the new exploit chain.</i>

Some years ago I sold my TV because of its annoying UI and ads. I use a large PC monitor instead to watch stuff. Went back to pirating everything so I dont have to worry about whatever DRM garbage comes next or ads or streaming subscriptions etc. Zero regret. I waste way less time consuming media in general. I watch more youtube (with ad block and sponsor block ofc) and I go more to the cinema (expensive but I enjoy it way more than a streaming subscription). I buy merchandise form stuff I like and I go to concerts if possible and that&#x27;s it.

... plus they typically spy on you.<p>Like the TV will take a screenshot of what video you&#x27;re watching via HDMI and upload that for content ID. Or it&#x27;ll turn on the microphone to listen in on what you say.<p>Samsung calls that shit &quot;Viewing Information Services&quot;. I guess because it informs their headquarters of what you are viewing.

I left my Tizen based Samsung with my ex wife when we got divorced. This was a subtle troll because I am finally free of the fucking thing and she&#x27;s not.<p>The last decade of ownership has been hell. Slow laggy equipment, HDCP problems, working but forcibly obsoleted hardware, bugs galore and ads stuffed in your face.<p>I now no longer own a television and will never own one again.

never, ever give a TV an internet connection, wifi password or dhcp lease.<p>I realize there are ads on the homescreen of an xbox series x, ps4 pro, ps5, etc but I would much rather deal with those than whatever shoddy operating system TV manufacturers put on their thing.<p>I have a thousand times more confidence that microsoft and sony will keep their OSes patched and up to date (they have a strong financial&#x2F;self-interest incentive to do so, for anti piracy reasons) than the junk running on a TV.

It&#x27;s so frustrating. For some consumers, you&#x27;re dropping multiple paychecks on a TV that you want to just _USE_ - but you can&#x27;t because Samsung, LG, whoever decided to take money from various companies and shove their garbage advertising down your throats and you can&#x27;t disable it.<p>I don&#x27;t feel like browsing various commercial signage websites for TV&#x27;s that don&#x27;t have any advertising in and I don&#x27;t feel like we should be punished for paying more for this either!<p>I just want a TV I can turn on - and it doesn&#x27;t need to load an operating system - it doesn&#x27;t need to delay displaying actual TV because the computer needs to reach out and upload telemetry, download advertisements, and take pictures of what you watch. It just needs to take an HDMI&#x2F;RCA&#x2F;whatever ports, and output the signal on the screen.<p>There&#x27;s no expectation of privacy anymore in society - some company somewhere has eked out a slice of the market share, and are pounding their customers with ways to extract more wealth out of you while you sit and take it - the 2 or 3 second delays eating up your life for advertisements you&#x27;ll never buy things from.<p>It&#x27;s depressing - I just want a TV. A plain TV. I&#x27;d rather not pay more for a commercial display-tier TV that doesn&#x27;t have any of this smart crap built in.

I run a pihole on my network for exactly this reason. The amount of network traffic the TV attempts, even when on standby or watching over-the-air broadcast is astonishing.

Meanwhile the OP post is so full of ads you’re basically scrolling past a full-screen (on mobile) ad for every paragraph. Then when I came across a chunk of text without ads and thought it was over, an ad got dynamically loaded into the middle of the text pushing what I was reading down off the screen.<p>Yes in this case I didn’t pay to read the content so they need ads, but the user-hostility of ads everywhere is just insane lately.

I spent $200 on a 43&quot; Spectre UHD 4K TV a week ago and it literally doesn&#x27;t have wifi capabilities. It just reads off HDMI. The end.<p>WalMart sells their stuff at like half MSRP and there isn&#x27;t network connectivity with which to exfiltrate your data.<p>I wish every manufacturer worked like this.

I own this tv, and I had it connected to the internet for a short while. Not only does it have ads everywhere, but the menu is <i>SLOW</i>. Taking it off the internet not only got rid of the ads, but also made menu navigation faster.

I think this whole thread is very indicative of why programmers shouldn&#x27;t design a product. I&#x27;ve been reading through the article and comments trying to figure out what &quot;ads&quot; were being referenced and then I finally realized people must be talking about the ads for TV shows and movies...<p>I think the average consumer would much rather have a TV that they simply connect to their wifi and then get Netflix, YT, Disney+, etc as opposed to hooking up some sort of computer or streaming box via hdmi to get the TV to work. I also think the average consumer doesn&#x27;t find ads for TV shows and movies that show up on their TV intrusive. I mean, that&#x27;s essentially what every streaming app does already isn&#x27;t it? It just shows potential shows and movies. Why would they get upset that their TV does the same thing?<p>What I do think is intrusive and disgusting is the fact that Samsung will happily take screenshots of what you&#x27;re watching and send telemetry. The random ads for movies that show up are the least of my concerns.

Queue a zillion posts about wanting dumb TVs.<p>My suggestion is buy a Roku, don&#x27;t give the TV an IP address, and run Netflix, Amazon Prime, Plex, Hulu, and whatever you want out of one of the biggest channel catalogs out there on the Roku. It&#x27;s way nicer remote, supports RF (so no pointing at the TV), and even supports using earphones (BT or wired from the remote).

When I was a kid, the most frustrating technical challenge around TVs was how to get the VCR clock to stop flashing. How the world has changed since then!

I went through this process - we bought a &quot;TV&quot; and found it impossible to fight off &quot;watch this&quot; trailers appearing and enticing our little one.<p>The only solution is to buy &quot;business or gaming monitors&quot; - no built in TV, just connect up a apple box and be done with it.<p>Even then you can tell Apple is moving from &quot;here is a button to press&quot; to &quot;let us decide what you are interested in&quot;<p>(Tangent but it&#x27;s noticeable that the stuff I have bought from Apple Itunes like a kids movie is several clicks away, but the latest movie that I have not bought but will need to pay for is right there on the home screen. No. That&#x27;s the wrong way round. If I reach up to my bookshelf and the bookshelf needs me to climb a ladder and reach over the books for sale to get to my own darn book, the bookshelf is not doing it&#x27;s job.<p>Apple. Be a bookshelf. I paid for a bookshelf.

Unlike other brands, my LG allowed me to decline all the crap ware ToS so it&#x27;s pretty much just a normal non smart TV. It does give a text add for new apps at the bottom usually when a new firmware update comes out.<p>Not a bad deal imo. Thanks LG.

I spent 3K on a 65&quot; 4K conference room touchscreen monitor. Rather than having a built in smart TV function it has a dock for a SFF PC.<p>It lacks a tuner and don&#x27;t think it does HDR but it does have surprisingly good sound.

That&#x27;s only the problem you know about. The problem you don&#x27;t know about is your TV is watching (and listening) to you. Put a cheap computer between your TV and the internet. Always buy the dumbest TV available. But dumb TVs now cost more than smart TVs. Dumb TVs make it difficult for the manufacturer to make money off you after the sale.

I don&#x27;t understand why anyone would like to connect such a thing to their WiFi. An external device gives you flexibility and control. The built-in firmware gives you ads and tracking.

All Samsung devices are trash these days

Cheapo 4k 60hz Spectre tv from walmart. Best purchase I&#x27;ve made in years. Plug in my favorite streaming device and when it gets old and slow I just chuck it and buy another $20-50 device instead of having to buy a whole TV.

I will just drop this link here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.samsung.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;business&#x2F;samsungads&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.samsung.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;business&#x2F;samsungads&#x2F;</a>

I mentioned this before, the hackers of the world need to try to get linux onto smart TVs, not sure how it would get flashed, but Samsung is being truly obnoxious, and they aren&#x27;t alone.<p>They know you have no options, so they can be as obnoxious as they want once you get the TV, and they know everyone else is as bad.<p>But if there was a way better OS to flash on? Sign me up.<p>Knowing the TV makers, they likely will have that locked down tight with signed code. But if there is a way to update firmware over the air, maybe there&#x27;s a way to intercept the update and swap in a different firmware

If you are comfortable with configuring DNS settings you can use NextDNS, it works with LG smart TVs. Pi-hole is an alternative but it is a bit more complicated to setup.

I just got a Sony flagship television with Google Android TV.<p>I&#x27;m <i>fully expecting</i> it to be automatically broken by a software update about 1-3 months after the warranty expires and the new models are released. I plan to disable updates around 1 year in to mitigate this risk.<p>Think about what it says about the entire industry that this is what customers <i>expect</i>: multi-thousand-dollar products being purposefully remotely broken by the vendors.

Hmm..I would have more sympathy if the article didn&#x27;t include an advert to buy an AppleTV &quot;ZDNet Recommends: Apple TV 4K&quot; - $179 at Apple

Dumb question - How does one go about (cost effectively) getting <i>just</i> a monitor that has:<p>* Same size&#x2F;resolution range as the comparable TV<p>* Same price range as the comparable TV<p>* X display ports (combination of hdmi, usb, etc)<p>* Wifi (and bluetooth too?)<p>* Audio + ports<p>* Fine infra-red too for remotes<p>* Other absoulute hardware essentials i might have missed<p>Absolutely no inbuilt players or software or bloatware or adware or any of that crap! May be an app (inbuilt or for the phone) to configure presets perhaps.

I actually ran into this problem buying an Nvidia Shield Pro; they had <i>just</i> changed the UI to be packed with ads, so I was left wondering what was so great about it (from previous reviews).<p>Currently a Steam Link (old hardware), and Raspberry Pi running Plex&#x2F;Kodi are pretty much my setup. Cast things to Kodi, use yt-dlp to download YouTube stuff, or remote into my PC with the Steam Link.

My next &quot;TV&quot; is just going to be a conference room monitor. Dell has some for like around $1K for a 55 inch and $4.3k for a 75 inch. Not sure about other companies, but my experiences with Dell have always been positive so I&#x27;m okay paying a bit of a premium absent better alternatives.

I&#x27;ve been very happy with Sony smart TVs. They are Android based, and don&#x27;t have &quot;ads.&quot; (They do highlight promoted content.) It&#x27;s very easy to go directly to Netflix, ect. Even the remotes give the services dedicated buttons.

Somewhat related, ever since I upgraded from old Chromecast to Google TV I&#x27;m having issues simply casting from HBO Max or Netflix. First I need to cast once, it would turn on the TV and open the annoying Google TV &quot;app browser&quot;. Then I&#x27;d have to stop casting and start casting again to actually enter the app I want. Maybe my stick has some hardware problems and&#x2F;or I&#x27;m paranoid but things like these feel like they are just trying to get me to use the Google remote and their app so that they can show me ads and recommend other streaming services (of course Amazon Video is always the first app offered eveb though I never used it).

I’ve been using Chromecast for 7 years now. A lot of these built in UIs are a pretty miserable experience to muck around in.<p>To me, your phone is the only thing that should be controlling your TV or sound system. It’s nice, it’s clean, and I don’t have multiple remotes to flop between.<p>Who wants to deal with gimpy little Linux OS’s built into their tv? They’re getting too smart in a hyper 1980’s sort of way. They provide far more than anyone asked, my TV doesn’t need a browser. I can’t help but think TVs would be cheaper without them, but built in smart boxes are so run of the mill now that I’m sure it’s at most $50 extra.<p>Incase I come off as a luddite, I think smart ovens are a great idea.

I have a Mi TV. I created rules for everything it was randomly sending in my Pi-Hole. I don&#x27;t use traditional TV so I have no experience with smart ads. Next to the common apps we make heavy use of Kodi, mostly to properly access all the TV channels online catalogues. I use alternative apps without ads whenever possible (Smarttube, some weird Twitch app I found on the store, ...)<p>The only thing i couldn&#x27;t &#x27;fix&#x27; yet are the extensive ads when using YouTube via cast.<p>Edit:&#x2F;&#x2F; Samsung botching Android to something ugly with shit UX is nothing new. Really just avoid buying Samsung devices

If Software Freedom Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio for GPL violations in their TVs, you will probably be able to install open source Linux distros with KDE Plasma Bigscreen or Kodi on any Vizio TV and soon afterwards lots of other smart TV vendors including Samsung will likely be similar. Allowing the vendor operating system to remain on the device after you purchase it basically means ads&#x2F;spyware these days.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfconservancy.org&#x2F;copyleft-compliance&#x2F;vizio.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfconservancy.org&#x2F;copyleft-compliance&#x2F;vizio.html</a>

Besides complaining on the internet, what can consumers do about this? All the TV brands do the same thing, and those that don&#x27;t simply haven&#x27;t gotten around to pushing out the firmware update that enables ads.

A few people have mentioned ARC problems. If you are having problems with plain ARC, as opposed to eARC, try using an HDMI cable with ethernet.<p>Plain ARC is supposed to work over any HDMI cable so you should only need an HDMI with ethernet for eARC, but after years of never being able get ARC to work with my Denon receiver which is from 2013 I happened to notice that in the manual it said that for ARC to use a “Standard HDMI cable with Ethernet” or “High Speed HDMI cable with Ethernet”. I switched to a &quot;with Ethernet&quot; cable and ARC worked.

The smart tv interfaces are abysmal across the board and it has mostly to do with the prioritization of ad space over functionality. I have an old Plasma with an Apple TV I use for most of my tv watching and then a modern new smart tv for games and the occasional movie in another room.<p>Roku is also a fine cheaper alternative to the built in interface of new TVs though it is also ad supported so you are just replacing one bad ad supported interface for a better, ad supported interface. And while it functions and is generally quick, it isn’t the most attractive UX.

Consider getting a digital projector instead. I got a relatively cheap one (Dr J mini projector, 1080p) for $60. It...is not like a TV. Works only in low lighting conditions and has some focus issues, but if you just want a big screen with decent resolution, absolutely worth skipping a TV for this. And NO SMART FEATURES.<p>I&#x27;ll be upgrading to a better, eventually 4k projector, but it seems like the ad and spam smart crap hasn&#x27;t hit projectors yet....YET.

Well don&#x27;t buy a Samsung then. Sometimes things are that simple. They&#x27;re pretty well known for bloatware and why would tv be any different? I have a Phillips (not really Phillips but some vague company licensed their brand), basically the cheapest option in the 70 inch 4k space. I don&#x27;t have issues with ads. Just the standard yt ads because I&#x27;m cheap and don&#x27;t have yt premium.

My Samsung TV included <i>anti-virus software</i>! Why does my TV need that? Sure it can install apps, but they’re all from Samsung’s own TV app store.<p>I only learned this because the UI had gotten soooo slow, like five seconds to respond to each button click on the remote control. Turning off the virus scanner mostly fixed the problem. Thanks, TV software update!

We&#x27;ve had a Roku TV for years and have been extremely happy with it.<p>The UI is great and it&#x27;s nice to have everything right there without having to work for it. And as someone without cable, I even come to enjoy some of the internet channels they offer.<p>My takeaway would be manufacturers do not do good user software. This is true whether it&#x27;s tvs or cars or fridges.

Aside from not giving it a network connection, my LG C1 also became a lot less obnoxious when I declined the privacy policy, at which point it disabled most so-called “smart” features. All the image processing stuff still works. Also felt like it starts up more quickly, although I’m not game to re-enable anything to actually measure it.

I have the same TV and have literally never thought about the ads on it except when reading articles on Hacker News.<p>It seems like a huge benefit these days to be the sort of person who just isn&#x27;t bothered by ads, like you can enjoy products and have more options available and don&#x27;t have to do a ton of work to enjoy them.

I wonder what TV units big corps buy for conference rooms, etc?<p>Imagine you are Google and you buy LG Spy TV, or Samsung Spy Panel. You put it in your conference room, where you meet regularly to discuss next Pixel phone with the Samsung&#x27;s remote control AI listening to you. Eh?<p>What products are they buying?

i am using a C1 for a desktop monitor, this advertising stuff is crazy i turn it on and it overlays a message about getting Disney plus for x per month....<p>even worse it auto updated and it force me to go through a TOS and privacy policy.... now why the hell do we need all this on a TV

I also own a samsung smart tv and hate the ad in the source screen, but more infuriating is their tv app always reappearing in the source menu as the first option… I always delete it but after a while there it is again..<p>also, it’s very ironic that I got a samsung ad on this site…

That&#x27;s what you get for not doing research prior buying TV. By now everyone should already know to avoid Samsung smart TVs. Just read reviews&#x2F;experiences prior buying or try it on your own and if you don&#x27;t like it return it.

Funny, I got a Samsung TV which comes with Samsung TV+ which is their internet streaming service for free. Although I&#x27;m fortunately enough to not get ads everywhere (hopefully this doesn&#x27;t change), the channel are actually pretty good.

In my experience, Samsung TV&#x27;s are atrocious garbage. LG has been great for me tho

TVs also seem to consume way more power. I have 48&quot; full hd Sony from 2016 that consumes max 58W. None of the TVs on the market come even close, some consume 3x as much! What happened? Is 4K really that inefficient?

I love that ZDNet&#x27;s ads are recommending the exact TV mentioned in the article: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;wzKUlb6.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;wzKUlb6.png</a>

Why did the author dismiss the LG C1 as having the same problem?<p>I don’t remember ads on my CX (outside the App Store maybe).<p>I still use an Apple TV because I like the interface way better. But it has been a great TV.

Just wait till ATSC 3.0. Then you will really be bombarded by ads.

Those articles complaining about ads are always unclear to me.<p>Are they saying that there is ads even when you switch inputs to a 3rd party device or is it just in the built-in media player?

Seems like there&#x27;s a market here for a relatively bare-bones high quality TV. Someone could probably start a small manufacturing business around that.

It&#x27;s pretty annoying too that you spend $3k, and Samsung got probably all of $150 to serve ads to you in perpetuity.

Isn’t that just so utterly expected that it shouldn’t surprise anyone? It is better to find a quality dumb TV, IMO.

$3k is an absurd amount for a TV, especially when considering their short lifespan due to planned obsolescence

Hope the EU regulates this so I can -- at least -- import a TV from somewhere that doesn&#x27;t have this shit

Somebody needs to sell a tv with a high quality display, 10 hdmi ports and no smart features whatsoever.

Have anyone looked into the service menus of their TVs to see of there are options there to disable?

Is this a US thing? I have samsung tizen high end TV in Europe and there are no ads whatsoever.

for smart tv&#x27;s in general... can we make a public OSOS, to replace shit like this... just make it a Linux box tied to a some ubiquitous AUR equivalent... or are the unique hardware features too varied to overcome?

User: Buys $3000 ad machine<p>Ad Machine: * Shows Ads *<p>User: * surprised Pikachu face *

Sony TVs are better.

For my Samsung TV, I connect it to the internet once a year for a firmware&#x2F;software upgrade.<p>Outside of that, any TV in my house is connected to an AppleTV. HDMICEC is great.

Would a Pihole work for these ads?

&quot;I narrowed it down to the 85-inch versions&quot;<p>Lol

&quot;There are a few guides on the web to minimize these intrusions, which include not only digging into the Samsung Tizen UX to chase checkboxes and mess around with settings, but also having to go into your broadband router&#x27;s configuration and block lists of ad serving domains.<p>You can also use Cisco&#x27;s free consumer OpenDNS service to do this and override the DNS settings within the TV without messing with your router, which is what I ended up doing. But that requires the ability to update your dynamic IP from your router, so you may need to refresh OpenDNS&#x27;s settings on occasion.&quot;<p>Or you can put your own router, a computer you control with an open source OS of your choosing, in front of or in place of the ISP&#x27;s router. Then you can, through various means, control the TV&#x27;s access to DNS or other servers.<p>Maybe the OP is stopping some ads by using OpenDNS, but he is not stopping data collection, commercial surveillance and data sharing with third parties for commercial purposes. Under OpenDNS&#x27;s extremely permissive &quot;privacy&quot; policy, anyone, including TV manufacturers like Samsung, can potentially get the DNS lookup data from Cisco.^1<p>&quot;It&#x27;s ridiculous that you can spend this kind of money on a product, cut cords, and <i>pay extra not to have ads on certain services</i>, and then have them forced down your throat in the TV UX.&quot;<p>You may pay extra to stop ads, but it will not stop the surveillance, data collection and sharing and use of the data for commercial purposes.<p>1. Some highlights from Cisco&#x2F;OpenDNS &quot;privacy&quot; policy (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20220928020026if_&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cisco.com&#x2F;c&#x2F;en&#x2F;us&#x2F;about&#x2F;legal&#x2F;privacy-full" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20220928020026if_&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ci...</a>)<p>The types of personal information that we may process depends on the business context and the purposes for which it was collected. It may include:<p>Contact, subscription, registration, online identifiers, social media and discussion forum or communications details;<p>Communications (i.e., audio, video, text) content;<p>Online behavior and product usage information;<p>Financial Information (e.g., bank account details, etc.);<p>Details of an individual&#x27;s business and other interests and opinions (e.g., where information is held in a Customer Relationship Management database); and<p>information about the user of our products and services, including System Information such as device identifiers, and telemetry (such as IP or MAC address) when such data is linked or tied to a specific person&#x27;s device.<p>If we link other data with your personal information, we will treat that linked data as personal information.<p>Collection &amp; Use of Your Personal Information<p>We may collect data, including personal information, about you as you use our websites and Solutions and interact with us. We also acquire personal information from trusted third-party sources and engage third parties to collect personal information on our behalf.<p>Sharing Your Personal Information<p>We may share personal information in the following ways:<p>With business partners, service vendors, authorized third-party agents, or contractors to provide a requested website, Solution, service or transaction. Examples include processing of orders and credit card transactions, hosting websites, hosting seminar registration, assisting with sales-related efforts or post-sales support, and providing customer support.<p>With Cisco business partners or vendors, so that they may share information with you about their products or services. To opt-out of Cisco sharing with third parties for their marketing purposes, please click here.<p>In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, consolidation or restructuring, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by or to another company.<p>In response to a request for information by a competent authority or third party if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or is otherwise required by, any applicable law, regulation or legal process.<p>With law enforcement officials, government authorities, or other third parties as necessary to comply with legal process or meet national security requirements; protect the rights, property, or safety of Cisco, our business partners, you, or others; or as otherwise required by applicable law.

Just go into the menues and turn it off.