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Roku’s Ultimatum: Surrender Jury Trial Rights or Lose Access to Your TVs

Did your Roku TV decide to strong arm you into giving up your rights or lose your FULLY FUNCTIONING WORKING TV? Because mine did.

It doesn’t matter if you only use it as a dumb panel for an Apple TV, Fire stick, or just to play your gaming console. You either agree or get bent.

CosmicCleric , (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Sections 1(F) and 1(L) seem like the only ways out/around of this. (IANAL; the bolding emphasis was done by me.)

F. Small Claims. You or Roku may pursue any Claim, except IP Claims, in a small-claims court instead of through arbitration if (i) the Claim meets the jurisdictional requirements of the small claims court and (ii) the small claims court does not permit class or similar representative actions or relief.

L. 30-Day Right to Opt Out. You have the right to opt out of arbitration by sending written notice of your decision to opt out to the following address by mail: General Counsel, Roku Inc., 1701 Junction Court, Suite 100, San Jose, CA 95112 within 30 days of you first becoming subject to these Dispute Resolution Terms. Such notice must include the name of each person opting out and contact information for each such person, the specific product models, software, or services used that are at issue, the email address that you used to set up your Roku account (if you have one), and, if applicable, a copy of your purchase receipt. For clarity, opt-out notices submitted via any method other than mail (including email) will not be effective. If you send timely written notice containing the required information in accordance with this Section 1(L), then neither party will be required to arbitrate the Claims between them.

Any lawyers out there who can speak towards the three bolded parts?

chirospasm , (edited )
@chirospasm@lemmy.ml avatar

Recommendations to purchase a smart TV but never connect it to a network are futile, as well. Just like Amazon devices, smart TVs will find an open SSID and then phone home for updates without your knowledge.

My recommendation, when these kind of topics come up, is: either exchange your smart TV for a dumb one, or go to an electronics repair shop to have a board or two exchanged (depending on the make and model, older dumb components may be direct-ish replacements for smart ones).

EDIT: Another option? Try a projector! I was looking for dumb TV options online after writing up this comment, and someone on an old Reddit post recommended it. Great idea.

2nd EDIT: Someone else also recommended buying digital signage, another solid dumb display option.

trafficnab ,

If I ever have a device connecting to open networks by itself I’m snipping its wifi antenna

Modern_medicine_isnt ,

Yeah, connecting to open networks seems questionable. If it gets infected and you later connect it to your network, they are clearly at fault. So I doubt they do this.

trafficnab ,

Don’t underestimate how dumb and greedy corpos can be

milicent_bystandr ,

“Sorry, we … maybe won’t do it next time. Here’s a sweety and a $5 coupon now please forget about it.”

swearengen ,

Newer monitors are also good options. Usually they have enough HDCP compliant ports these days and none of the bullshit.

Pair with a sound bar or surround sound system and you got a great setup.

dXq9dwg4zt ,

Recommendations to purchase a smart TV but never connect it to a network are futile, as well.

Not necessarily. Never connecting it to the internet is much better advice than trying to block it’s connections. After that it’s not (usually) difficult to open the back of the TV and simply disconnect the wifi adapter itself. In my experience it’s either a separate board connected by a ribbon cable or the same type of wifi adapter that is commonly found in laptops. If the antennas can be accessed then so can the adapter.

Tja ,

Yes, great advice. Open a high voltage device and play with its internals while voiding your warranty instead of checks notes… not giving it your Wi-Fi password.

Tja ,

Where do you live that you have free wifi all around?

starman2112 ,
@starman2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

If my TV has been finding open wifi networks for updates, it sure hasn’t made me aware of it. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they do this, but I’ve yet to see any proof that it’s happening.

snrkl ,

At least in Australia, Consumer Law means you have grounds to walk the TV back for a full refund.

yoz ,

I think its up to 12 months.?

snrkl ,

Depends on the price. I was able to return a 13 month old iPhone when apple announced the CSAM scanning (that they eventually abandoned) - I got a full refund. The phone costs enough that ACL considers it should operate for at least 2 years.

Evilcoleslaw ,

The bigger thing here is no class arbitration or other representative proceeding. A lot of law firms do arbitration now against companies either with class arbitration or just thousands of individual arbitrations filed en masse. I wonder if this protects them from even the latter approach? It would be shitty if it forced you to do all the legwork on the arbitration yourself.

In any case I get this is happening now and why it’s such a huge ultimatum is they know they’re about to get hit with a ton of Video Privacy Protection Act suits. Turns out in the late 80s the US made video service providers that share video watching/rental/purchase history open to actual damages of $2500. So in the last year or two a ton of law firms have started filing class actions and arbitrations against all the streaming services and platforms.

KingThrillgore ,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

If I recall correctly that law was quickly passed when a Congressman’s video rental history was leaked.

Thcdenton ,

“Dumb” TV + PC + 🏴‍☠️. life is good

5in1k ,

That’s what I have always done. I tried a Firestick once and found it terrible and tedious. Especially compared to M&K. I have a monster ass commercial quality smart tv and it will never access the internet on it’s own.

tty5 ,

There are no dumb TVs if you want e.g. OLED. The closest you can get is a smart tv that you never connect to the internet. If you like 4k HDR it will still be a major pain…

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I just posted about this in another community. I’ll just include the link below so I don’t double post.

lemmy.world/comment/8117710

Brkdncr ,

community.roku.com/t5/…/950649

potentiallynotfelix ,
@potentiallynotfelix@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I haven’t connected mine to the internet for a long time

NutWrench ,
@NutWrench@lemmy.world avatar

This is why I don’t buy “smart” TVs. They just want to data-mine you. And they can brick it whenever they want to, right over the Internet.

SpeedLimit55 ,

This is basically impossible unless you are buying commercial grade. Just buy whatever TV you want and never connect it to the internet.

kurcatovium ,

So how do you get stuff from internet (anything from Netflix to HBO) to the TV? Connecting PC? Not very practical and convenient. Connecting something like android/apple tv box? How does this differ from having the same built in? Just asking, because I’m really curious.

starman2112 ,
@starman2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

The same way you would with a dumb TV. Connect a computer, game console, flash drive, DVD player, etc. It differs from built in services because these TVs collect a truly unparalleled amount of data on you. Harmless, until a) bad actors get hold of that information—you might not care if Roku knows everything about you including payment info, but some russian hacker is a different story—or b) the increasing power that the advertising industry holds over our society turns Fifteen Million Merits into a documentary

stoly ,

This sort of thing isn’t new but I’ve seen this particular one all over the place. Was there something different from this experience compared to the times that people have agreed in the past?

wagoner ,

Opt out per the instructions!

MacNCheezus ,
@MacNCheezus@lemmy.today avatar

They REQUIRE you to send them via snail mail.

It even specifically states that email is not valid.

elbrar ,
@elbrar@pawb.social avatar

My muscle memory is to hit power-right-ok to open youtube when I turn the tv on, most of the time without looking at it. The other day, it ended up still sitting on the default menu item after I did that. This must have popped up then. Something that can be dismissed without ever actually seeing it is certainly not enforceable.

TrickDacy ,

So Roku is also a piece of shit too eh? I knew that their device I bought wasn’t great but I thought it was just a cheap one. Glad I’m creating a media PC on Linux

kingshrubb ,

Are there any good 4k 65"+ TVs without smart features? All the ones I see from LG Samsung Sony or other top rated TV manufacturers are smart TVs.

Choosenewagain ,

Try look into the Samsung BEC-H. Its meant for signage so double check it has all the inputs you need but it comes in 65", 4k and no “smart” features.

not_a_dog ,

Don’t they all essentially require internet access to be ‘smart’? I have a LGTV (with WebOS, an app store, etc.) that I basically treat as ‘dumb’ by leaving it disconnected from our network.

baseless_discourse , (edited )

Nowadays there are TV that requires internet connection to use the HDMI ports, I hope this trend NEVER take off.

old.reddit.com/…/fire_tv_requires_an_internet_con…

normalexit ,

I have a Samsung S90, and I was able to disconnect from my network after the initial setup. I also set it to default to the last HDMI input at startup, so I never see the TV OS.

I feel like this is subject to change, but a smart TV without an Internet connection seems to still be an option until they take it away.

PeachMan ,
@PeachMan@lemmy.world avatar

This is suuuuuuuper common, most software makes you agree to some sort of arbitration clause. It doesn’t mean that you can’t sue them, it’s just an obstacle to deter you.

gian ,

Only where going to court could bankrupt you.

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