Samsung’s latest Smart TV has suffered a PR disaster. A number of users have complained that during watching locally stored content on Samsung smart TV, pop up ads from nowhere surface on the screen and start playing, without the intent or permission of the user. The first report came on Reddit where a user said that a muted Pepsi ad came on the screen while he was watching TV shows on his Samsung Smart TV. After this, hundreds of users lodged complaints through Plex and Australian service Foxtel.
Plex was quick to issue a statement that this ads programming error has nothing to do with it. Later on, several experts blamed Foxtel programming service for these random ads but a statement from Samsung cleared the confusions. Samsung said that it was an error on its part due to a software update that ‘was not intended’ for the Australian customers. Also, it’s important to note that no other Smart TVs are facing this problem and it is now almost confirmed that Samsung Smart TVs are the real cause of this faulty programming.
Earlier this month, Samsung suffered a marketing disaster when it said that Samsung Smart TVs could ‘listen to audience conversations’. What can be more devastating than this label, keeping in view the privacy concerns users around the world have regarding technology devices and software.
However, there’s a temporary fix to this issue. Samsung Smart TV users can turn off these random ads by going in the Samsung TV hub settings and selecting ‘disagree with the Yahoo Privacy Notice’.
Samsung faced a similar humiliation back in January when several smart TV users reported random ads from Yahoo. Samsung has said that it is working with Yahoo on an opt-in ads program and the bugs are caused during the development of this new feature.