You have to watch out for the TVs that attempt to connect to public networks. So pray your neighbors have passwords on their wifi and didn't opt in to Comcast's hotspots.

Even if the TV set does that but you only use the dumb features then there isn't too much to spy, right?

It should be hard for the TV to recognize what you play connected from a cable. (Edit: I know they can do it but please read the next paragraph).

Besides, if you block commercials from the smart features, what does the manufacturer gains by spying on you? Without incentives why bother the work?

Some of these TVs have been found to upload screenshots of what is being displayed:

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/samsung-smart-tvs...

Making copies of material under copyright?

I'm not sure why they used "screenshot", because they actually take a fingerprint/hash of the material being displayed. It's much more compact and way more practical.

The TVs are actually trying to identify the content on screen.

I'm not sure if smart TVs come with always on recording capabilities (Siri, Alexa style) yet but that's a possible avenue to leak private audio of your viewing area.

Sadly ACR is a thing that most manufacturers are using / employing - https://factory-reset.com/wiki/Disable_ACR

And Amazon:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2020/1...

Probably easy enough to sever the wifi antenna in that case

Wait until TVs comes with a cellular model that you can’t turnoff

That's the real reason behind the push for 5G

Dunno why people are downvoting you - there is more truth than many would like to admit, apparently.

I'm loathe to buy a new car since they all come with cellular modems. How long before insurance companies start demanding access to them? I plan on taking really good care of my older vehicles and hope I never have to replace them.

Yeah I've been expecting that.

So basically just connect chromecast and the problem is circumvented.