It won't. Stories about it happening on the internet is plentiful, but actual evidence is scarce.

But will it join open networks automatically? It is of course entirely possible, technically speaking, but would get any company actually doing that in a lot of trouble in most developed countries.

> but would get any company actually doing that in a lot of trouble in most developed countries.

Why then is Amazon building out its parasitic WiFi network, if not to give unmediated access to its devices. I bet Amazon FireOS devices will do this very thing in the next 2 years, and not get into any trouble for it in the US

Has there ever been any evidence of any TV doing this, ever?

Honestly why wouldn't they connect to for example a cell phone tower or wifi hotspot ex xfinity wifi to download ads? Just pay whomever happens to ferry the ad to your TV a percentage of the take. Seems like this may well not be the case NOW but if I were planning to use a device for 10 years then a software updating adding this feature seems like a distinct possibility.

Depends on the behaviour. On the times you've observed it

1) will it bounce between open wifi points if one does not allow internet access (set up a honeypot)

2) will it try open wifi if you join it to a secured wifi and block that traffic

3) can you send de-auth packets to any open wifi the tv's radio connects to

4) can you desolder the wifi antenna completely

I just allowed my Samsung TV to connect to the wifi (to access the local network, because the Steam Link client is better on it than it is on the Apple TV) and then, on my router, I blocked all Internet access coming from the mac address of the Samsung TV.

At some point, these devices will be smarter than you about this. They will recognize a WiFi connection that cannot access the internet, and prefer an open network instead.

They will simply come with a cellular modem built in and you won't be able to block it. These things are so cheap now, and with virtual sims I think this is pretty much inevitable.

At some point everything will be internet connected just because the tech will cost pennies. We're not there yet, but for a big ticket item such as a TV or a car it's either already there or about to happen.

> They will come with a cellular modem built in, and you won't be able to block it.

Haha, joke's one them. I live in a nice apartment in the middle of a major US city, and in my last 3 apartments, cell signal reception was ranging between 1 bar and no signal reception at all. Good luck with a built-in cell modem here.

Thankfully, wifi calling is a thing working by default. So having almost no cell reception at home has exactly zero effect on my phone usage.

The worry I have is TVs also embedding an Amazon Sidewalk chip. Seems like it would be easy for them to egress your data through your neighbor's spy device with something like that.

Is that really a specific chip or just their Alexa devices creating a shared WiFi network?

I assume it is the latter, because that's what Alexa Sidewalk is. But that's a speculation, because neither of those currently exist in TVs, and I don't see LG or Samsung go along with it.

EDIT: I stand corrected, Sidewalk isn't a wifi network, it is it's own LoRa network that's limited to barely 1Kbps (which, imo, only strengthens my original point). Thanks for pointing out that technical detail in the replies.

What's to go along with? Samsung and/or LG are not required to participate in Sidewalk. They just need to be given the ability to scan for open WiFi networks and join when found. They really don't even need to know the SSID, but of course they'll track that info as well.

Sidewalk is not wifi, it's their own networking based using LoRa, which has its own wireless spectrum and its own limits. For example bandwidth is limited to single digit kilobyte/s in best case. Of course real world usage is going to be worse.

That process tends to require the use of a screw driver and the willingness to perform a bit of modifications.

To join an open network, it needs an antenna, which are easy to identify and permanently remove.

if it's that insidious let it connect to a dummy SSID that appears to be working but can't do anything useful

break antenna would be easiest solution, but you might possibly void the warranty while opening TV

Not giving them your money in the first place would be the easiest solution.

except it will cost you way more money, if I have to choose between breaking antena in TV for 600 USD or buying special display for triple price, I am fairly sure I'd prefer to void the warranty and still buy 2 other TVs in case I would need warranty

when I check cheapest/mainstream 65-75" TVs (wouldn't buy smaller nowadays considering cheapest 75" TV, which is Samsung here cost like 680 USD), all of them are smart

firewall by MAC-address

If it's a trully open network that say is you neighbor's, then there's no way you can control this filtering.

The Amazon Sidewalk or whatever they had planned would be an example of this that might be less obvious than your neighbor just being bad at IT.