Your smart TV is probably crawling the web in search of artificial intelligence

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These days, if you sign up for a new streaming service, you generally have two choices: either pay a hefty sum for an ad-free experience, or put up with frequent commercial breaks and all the sneaky tracking that comes with ad targeting.

Web data collector Bright data It is pushing streaming service operators for an alternative approach to apps running on Samsung’s Tizen platform and LG’s webOS platform – one that comes without ads and hefty fees. All publishers have to do to open a new revenue stream is merge the company Bright SDK in their TV apps and convince viewers to subscribe to Bright’s monetization network.

“We don’t do any kind of tracking,” explained Ariel Shulman, chief product officer at Bright Data. During a webinar For broadcast industry insiders two years ago. “We work silently in the background, completely anonymous. Users don’t actually see or feel anything.”

hunting? Using Bright’s SDK, the viewer’s smart TV becomes part of a massive global proxy network that crawls and mines the web. Including apps that run on desktops and mobile devices, the company claims to manage 150 million of these residential agents worldwide. Together, these devices collect petabytes of public web data from a wide range of different locations and IP addresses. This approach allows the company to capture local versions of websites, but also helps circumvent web crawler blacklists. The collected data is then resold to companies To train artificial intelligence modelsamong other things.

Here’s how Bright’s smart TV partnerships work: When a consumer downloads and installs a participating app, they’ll see a signup screen asking them to confirm they want to participate in Bright’s agent network. For example, for an app called Petflix that was until recently available on the Roku App Store, the note says:

“To enjoy Petflix for free with fewer ads, you allow Bright Data to use your device’s free resources and IP address to occasionally download public web data from the Internet. Bright Data will only use your IP address for approved business-related use cases. None of your personal information will be accessed or collected except for your IP address. Period.”

“Our network is based on consensual individual participation,” explains Jennifer Burns, a spokeswoman for Bright Data. “All users can unsubscribe at any time with a quick, two-click process.”

Once a consumer opts into the Bright Data network, their smart TV begins downloading publicly available web pages as well as audio and video data, which is then forwarded to Bright’s cloud servers. The company claims it only does this when it doesn’t impact a device’s bandwidth or processing capabilities, with Schulman saying individual devices only download about 50MB of data per day. In fact, there is no way for a user to know whether or not the SDK is downloading web data at any given moment.

In some cases, your Smart TV may crawl the web looking for Bright as soon as you turn it on. “In some operating systems, (…) our SDK is granted permissions by the user to run in the background,” Schulman explained during his webinar. “This means that our monetization continues even if the app itself is not working.” All it takes for consumers is to launch the app once and subscribe to the Bright network, and the device will continue crawling the web daily until they choose to opt out again or uninstall the app.

Bright Data isn’t the only company running these residential proxy networks. Some of its competitors have been criticized for unsightly business practices. Last month, Google took action against the IPIDEA network, which Google’s threat intelligence group described as “the world’s largest proxy network.” IPIDEA has worked with a number of SDK providers to distribute its code in third-party applications, including on smart TVs.

Once the devices registered to its network, IPIDEA’s operators allegedly rented these resources to hacking groups in China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia. “We (…) observe that IPIDEA is being exploited by a wide range of espionage, crime, and information operations actors,” Google’s Threat Intelligence Group wrote. January blog post.

To be clear: Google security researchers have found no connection whatsoever between IPIDEA and Bright Data, and Bright goes to great lengths to distinguish itself from bad actors. “Our SDK, as well as all of our technology, is reviewed by Apescent, Google, McAfee and others, and is audited regularly, most recently by PwC,” Burns says. “Bright SDK applies strict partner selection criteria and vets every application through stringent compliance processes.”

However, the company has been affected by a broader backlash against residential agent activities. Google has adopted policies against proxy SDKs running in the background, and Now tell the developers That they are only allowed to use proxy services “in applications where this is the primary purpose of the user-facing application.” Amazon added Provision for developer policies “Applications that facilitate proxy services for third parties” are strictly prohibited. Roku also prohibits developers from using the Bright SDK and similar proxy services.

All of these changes have made it difficult to know how widespread SDK use will be on smart TVs. A few dozen Fire TV apps still reference the SDK in the Amazon App Store, but they don’t seem to take advantage of it anymore. I was able to download a few apps from the Roku store that were still using the SDK, including the aforementioned Petflix app. However, those apps disappeared from the Store after I contacted Roku for this story.

New restrictions on proxy SDKs have had a direct impact on Bright’s addressable market in the smart TV space. The company used to offer its solution to Roku, Android TV, and Fire TV app developers, but Burns told me it no longer supports those platforms. Bright still lists Samsung’s Tizen OS and LG’s webOS as supported smart TV platforms, and has posted that Over 200 first-party apps To the LG App Store alone. LG spokeswoman Léa Lee told me that the Bright SDK “is not officially supported by LG, and its operation on the webOS platform is not guaranteed.” Samsung did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

There are arguably many legitimate use cases for web crawling. “Our network serves exclusively legitimate purposes, supporting journalists, nonprofits, academic researchers, cybersecurity companies, and other leading companies around the world,” says Burns.

The problem is that consumers have no idea whether this legitimate purpose aligns with their personal values. Case in point: Bright Data supports a number of nonprofits, including some that use its proxy network to track hate speech on social media. However, the company also works with the AMCHA initiative. The group maintains an “Anti-Zionist Faculty Barometer” that includes student and faculty statements against Israel’s war in Gaza, as well as calls for schools to divest from the country, in a tracker of anti-Semitic incidents.

As AI companies face scrutiny over their environmental impact, treatment of intellectual property, and the replaceability of human labor, some consumers may also feel uneasy about their TVs collecting data to train AI models.

Now, some consumers may decide that these concerns are overblown, and willingly subscribe to the Bright Network if it means they’ll see fewer ads or pay less for their streaming services. Personally, I’d rather watch an extra commercial break or two.