Welp, They’re Officially Displaying Ads Directly on Your Monitor

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If there’s one thing that smart TVs have proven, it’s that some tech is better off staying dumb

Sure, it’s nice being able to have your streaming apps in one place, but the tradeoff is hellish: these TVs, by default, come stuffed with ads and track an alarming amount of personal data. Some are even shipping with AI integration, with remotes featuring a dedicated AI button — because of course they are.

Now, computer monitors may be going the same way.

Last month, LG launched a storm of controversy after its monitors were caught sneakily installing pop-up ads onto customers’ computers. This was facilitated through the monitors’ accompanying software, the LG Monitor App Installer, which installed the ads under the guise of them being driver updates. Most of the pop-ups were for McAfee’s antivirus software, which showed every time the computer booted up, as well as other advertisers.

It wasn’t just on budget monitors, either. The YouTube channel and PC hardware outlet Gamers Nexus found that even top-of-the-line LG screens, such as its UltraGear 3GX900A-B gaming monitor which costs upwards of $1,200, were showing the ads as well.

It was such a bad look that Microsoft, the king of enshittifying operating systems and itself guilty of sneaking in pesky little ads, intervened and forced LG to remove the ads.

The pop-ups are gone for now, but a new Ars Technica piece raises some of the serious privacy concerns posed by the stealthy manner in which the ads were pushed, which come as some manufacturers are trying to make “smart monitors” the next thing in internet-enabled hardware.

As the reporting notes, LG and Samsung monitors use the same operating systems that their ad-riddled smart TVs do. That means that, just like the TVs, monitors could soon use automatic content recognition technology, which regularly scans your screens to target you with ads. But whereas most are using their TVs to casually watch shows and movies, computer monitors are used for a lot more private activities, like browsing the web or working from home. 

Ars asked LG and Samsung if their monitors will user ACR, but hasn’t heard back yet.

Once, you could hook up your new monitor to your computer and not worry about it spying on you. But if monitors go the way of TVs, that could be poised to change.

“When using a smart monitor, you not only have to worry about what the monitor could be tracking, but also what the OS operator (such as Google for Android-powered smart monitors) and third-party app providers (such as Netflix) can track,” Ars warned. 

For your average customer who may not be particularly tech literate, that’s a lot of keep tabs on.

More on privacy: BMW Suddenly Blasts Its Cars’ Internal Screens With Aggressive Advertisements

The post Welp, They’re Officially Displaying Ads Directly on Your Monitor appeared first on Futurism.

Acts 28 ends abruptly and that’s never sat right with me. With the inclusion of Acts 29, we are given a nice well-rounded finale to Luke’s biography and some interesting closure to Pontius Pilate as well. Join me as I continue my Lost Books of the Bible series on YouTube, reading from Acts 29, 3 Corinthians, and the Phoenix of Tertullian.

You can read along with these texts and more on our Sacred Scripture page. 

IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Watch the Interviews