Samsung investigates why its TVs put ads in others' apps

Samsung says it is investigating why some of its smart TVs are adding adverts to television programmes and films played via third-party apps, the BBC reports.

Owners have complained of a silent ad for Pepsi interrupting playback several times an hour.

A spokeswoman for Samsung said it was only aware of the glitch affecting customers in Australia at this time.

The fault comes days after the company faced controversy over the way its TVs made use of voice recordings.

"We are aware of a situation that has caused some smart TV users in Australia to experience programme interruption in the form of an advertisement," the spokeswoman said.

"This seems to be caused by an error, and we are currently conducting a full and thorough investigation into the cause as our top priority.

"This situation has so far been reported only in Australia. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience experienced by our customers."

Samsung's PR team is also dealing with a backlash prompted by fears that its smart TV sets might be "spying" on their watchers' conversations.

Concern was raised by a privacy policy that stated: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of voice recognition."

Several commentators compared the policy to the surveillance state depicted in George Orwell's novel 1984.