
While the extensive data collection may come as a surprise, Telly argues that smart TVs are already doing just that with less transparency–and no free television. Some data comes from a survey users fill out on preferences and lifestyle choices to maximize ad personalization, like showering users with restaurant ads and offering coupons to those who say they eat out a lot.

(After publication of this article, Telly said the question of sexual orientation has been removed from its privacy policy and that it has not been asked of any customers.) When you merge those two things together, the targeting is literally one to one.”Īccording to the company’s privacy policy, anonymized collected data includes contact information, cultural or social identifiers like favored sports teams, IP address, gender, political opinions and sexual orientation. “Similar to other TV makers, we have viewing data, but we also have audience data now at the individual household. “You’re giving us your demographics, your psychographics at the individual and household level before you even get your device, so we know who you are, we know where you live, we know your income, we know what car you’re driving, we know when your lease is up,” Ilya Pozin, founder and CEO of Telly, told the Hollywood Reporter Monday. Telly is relying on a second source of revenue on top of ads: data. “We believe that the consumer should share that value proposition.” “We are putting an end to the decades long practice of double-dipping on the consumer, where the consumer is being charged for the television and then have the TV manufacturer turn around and make billions of dollars off of selling the advertising and data from that television without providing the consumer any value,” Telly chief stategy officer Dallas Lawrence told CNN. Nonetheless, Telly reports “overwhelming” demand. Telly has opened sign-ups for the first 500,000 of its Dual Screen Smart TVs, a 55-inch display with the second smart screen integrated through a sound bar.Īs with most TV monitors, cable and streaming channels are not included. The TVs, subsidized by those ads on the second screen, will begin shipping out to the customers on its waitlist this summer.
