If they control the engine, they control the fingerprint, making it easier for them to detect and harder for 3rd party clients to spoof.
I don’t need more surveillance in the guise of consumer tech in my life, much less if anything.
My “smart” TV has never seen the network, nor is it ever going to, it displays pixels from a device running software that respects the user, gets constant and regular security updates and that I control, that is its one and only job.
Who said this is being done because you need it?
You're the product here. The shareholders demand growth.
I simply chose to opt out of that as far as is reasonable without living in a cave by candlelight, it gets harder ever year.
Do we really need a "next-generation living room web engine"? These smart TV OSes almost always suck ass, I wish all the TV manufacturers would just give up and ship simple panels with just basic volume and input selection control.
Or if you absolutely _must_ insist on shipping "smart" features, why do you still need to ship a full browser engine to show some text, rectangles, and images?
TVs own interfaces are some bespoke one-off stuff that isn't exposed to other apps.
And this sucks because Raspberry PIs have more powerful hardware than even modern high-end TVs.
If you check YouTube version string you'll see Cobalt as well on Android.