Free Apps Are Quietly Turning Smart TVs Into Web-Scraping Proxies for AI

Bright Data's SDK, embedded in consumer apps, can covertly enlist always-on devices (notably smart TVs) as residential proxy exit nodes for large-scale commercial web scraping, creating bandwidth usage, IP reputation issues, and privacy risks; the report details the SDK's mechanics, consent disclosure failures, detection/remediation guidance, and regulatory implications under laws like GDPR and CCPA.