February 6, 2017

New Jersey announced that Smart TV manufacturer VIZIO, Inc. (“VIZIO”) and its subsidiary VIZIO Inscape Services, LLC, (“Inscape”) have agreed to pay the State and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) $2.5 million and change their business practices to settle allegations they violated consumer protection laws by surreptitiously tracking consumers’ television viewing habits and selling the information to marketing companies and data brokers. The settlement ends parallel investigations conducted by the Division and the FTC into the use of data-collecting technology installed on VIZIO’s “Smart TVs.” The State obtained $1 million and the FTC obtained $1.5 million in the settlement. In a joint Complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, the State and the FTC alleged that VIZIO and Inscape violated state and federal laws by failing to effectively inform consumers that VIZIO smart televisions were continuously collecting and storing information about their viewing habits, and that the data was being sold to third parties for marketing purposes. NJ