PLEASE NOTE: The audio for this episode was recorded on March 13, 2026. Some stories covered here have developed since then. Updated sourcing and corrections are in the full show notes at squaredcast.com.

Recently, the lines between smart devices and corporate surveillance got harder to ignore. Hisense TVs started showing unskippable full-screen ads when owners switched HDMI inputs, pushed silently through a firmware update, after the sale, with remote per-device control that nobody disclosed at the register. New York's attorney general sued Valve for running what she called a gambling operation, and a class action followed days later. The world's biggest gaming conference lost a ...