Buzzfeed article about Peel Remote control... time to delete?

[psionandy]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/google-play-store-ad-fraud-du-group-baidu


The Samsung TV Remote Control app from Peel Technologies took 58 permissions, 23 of which are in the dangerous category defined by Android. The app is one of a family of TV remote applications from Peel that have similar functionality and permissions. They are all covered by a single privacy policy that says the app collects detailed information about the “content you consume (validated by audio content recognition).” This suggests the app accesses the microphone to record audio while you use it. It also collects information on your location, IP address, device, and behavior when you use the app.

 

[Dannydet]

Shame on you Samsung!

 

[Unforgiven]

Nevermind the sh!tstorm of ads it serves up on unsuspecting owners.

 

[mikedt]

Most phones lack IR blasters these days, certainly no current Samsungs, so I guess things were getting desperate at Peel Technologies, and so they tried to monetize in anyway they could.

A one product company, and their business model went away basically, along with IR blasters.

 

[Unforgiven]

FWIW, I grabbed a bunch of other Peel threads and gathered them in this channel so folkls can see their true colors.

 

[mikedt]

Shame on you Samsung!

Don't think Samsung really cares about who they do business with. For a few years every Galaxy device came with Cheetah Mobile snake-oil spyware installed

 

[Deleted User]

What a shame that IR blasters went away. Those were great for messing with people in restaurants....

That's one thing I hope Apple releases on a future phone, cause god knows if Apple does it then everyone else will try to follow

 

[mikedt]

What a shame that IR blasters went away. Those were great for messing with people in restaurants....

My Mate 10 has an IR and I use the stock remote app that came with it. And where I found it most useful is when I'm staying in hotels, because quite often the TV and AC remotes have flat batteries in them. And I can just use my phone for the TV and AC instead.

Also at home, because I have two ACs in different rooms, but only one original remote zapper.

Quite frankly I can't see Apple taking any interest in an IR blaster, especially when most other smart-phone manufacturers no longer have them in their devices, like Samsung. Also AFAIK things like Apple TV and HomePod can be controlled and integrate into iOS via WiFi.

 

[ocnbrze]

yeah i miss my note 4 having the ir blaster. i did not use it all that much save for making a few bar tricks and such.

i guess the bottom line is read the permissions and be suspicious of certain apps.