Another reason why I love Samsung products – and by love, I of course mean never trust or use. Daniel Cooper for Engadget writes:

 Samsung wants to be more than just a hardware company, which is why it’s strengthening its longstanding flirtation with the ad business. The Wall Street Journal claims that the manufacturer, struggling to turn a profit in TVs, will increase the number of tile ads that it displays in the menu bar of its smart TVs. These small squares are currently only available in the US, although the paper believes that Europe will be added to the program in the near future. In addition, older models will get the ads delivered to the home screen thanks to a future software update. 

But it gets better.

Who better for Samsung to turn to than Google, the best data mining company on the planet?

 It’s believed that Samsung has turned to Lee Won-jin, a former Google executive, to help spearhead its push into advertising. Much like its mobile division, its TV arm is struggling to make a profit 

Samsung’s mobile division has been imploding the past two years and now it looks like TV is headed the same way. Say what you will about Sony but maybe this whole scaling back their businesses at the expense of growth hasn’t been a bad strategy.

A year or so ago, Samsung was caught using the camera and mics in their smart TVs to gather data on its users which they of course assured us was to “enhance the user experience.” Now it’s all quite obvious that Samsung, like Google, wants to know as much about you as possible so they can sell you ads. What makes this more gross is that there is no inherent value proposition given to consumers. It’s not like a PC where you’re purchasing it for a lower price and in turn, will get a machine full of bloatware.

Instead with a future update, you simply get to enjoy ads delivered by Samsung.

Discuss:

Would you find the idea of ads on your TV interface intrusive?