Vizio Offers $17m to Settle Viewer Tracking Claims

In the US, smart TV company Vizio Inc. has agreed to pay $17m to settle a class action lawsuit which alleged it tracked viewers behavior without their permission, and sold the data to third parties.

The firm has already paid the FTC and NJ Attorney General's Office $2.2m in a settlement in February 2017, after collecting viewing data from around eleven million consumers without their knowledge and consent. The latest agreement settles a claim filed in Santa Ana in 2016 and should give affected consumers from a pool of 16m anywhere between $1 and $31.

Andre Mura, an attorney with law firm Gibbs, which represented consumers, said in a statement that the amount was more than Vizio had made from licensing the data during the three years in question, and noted that recent changes to the company's privacy policy 'put consumers in the driver's seat' as regards their data. Vizio itself points out that since the earlier judgement it has adopted 'clear, prominent and explicit viewing data disclosures', adding: 'While VIZIO enabled detection of content displayed on VIZIO Smart TVs and information unique to the unit including IP address, it never connected such information to an individual's name, address or similar identifying information'.

Data including gender, age, income, marital status, household size, education level, home ownership, and household value was collected and sold to clients for targeted advertising and other purposes, the FTC alleged. The court has scheduled a hearing on December 7th in Santa Ana to consider preliminary approval of the proposed settlement. According to Orange County Business Journal (www.ocbj.com ), Vizio's annual revenue has fallen to about $3bn and its 'long-held No. 2 position in flat-panel TV sales in North America is in jeopardy'.