The controversy that surrounded Samsung's confusing Smart TV privacy policy has barely been over and yet the company's smart television sets are now the focus of yet another snafu. Many users have reported that the TVs are pushing ads “every 20-30 minutes,” and that too when users' locally stored content is being played. Some have even seen the ads pop up when using video streaming services. Majority of the users have noticed this issue when using Plex, a media player that lets them stream content from a personal library and send it up on the big screen.
One user wrote in a post on Plex's official forum that “every 10-15 minutes whilst watching content on my Samsung TV I get a Pepsi advertisement showing!,” another user recounts a similar experience on reddit. Users in Australia complain about the Pepsi advertisement popping up when they're using Foxtel's streaming app that's built right into Smart Hub. Foxtel is the company's largest provider of pay TV.
Foxtel was quick to clarify that this issue had nothing to do with its service and that this was a Samsung issue. Samsung Australia later said through a statement that it was the “result of an error” which surfaced as part of a recent software update not intended for Australia that caused users to see the advertisement, and that the issue has been rectified.
That fixes things for people down in Australia. What about all those who are facing this issue when playing content from personal libraries? Note that Samsung doesn't say that these ads were not plans, only that they were not meant for the Australian market. So far the company has not revealed what its planned are for overseas users with Smart TVs.
