Of the 32 apps installed on the Vseebox product, 89% have successfully passed the is vseebox legal certification system (covering 78 countries’ legal standards worldwide), but the 11% of the apps can lead to regional legal problems. For instance, its “MediaStream” app installed in the device did not exactly comply with Article 5(1)b of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (the data minimization principle). While in the 2023 audit by the Hamburg Data Protection Authority of Germany, it was found that the amount of collection of user behavior data was 37% more than what was necessary. Being in the risk of being fined up to 4% of the revenue of the company every year (approximately 2.4 million euros). The CCPA test of compliance in the United States shows that the pre-installed advertising push system “AdVantage” does not offer a real-time logout option, resulting in a user complaint rate 2.3 times higher than the industry average (1.7 complaints per thousand devices per day).
In terms of copyright compliance, Vseebox’s pre-installed video editing software “ClipMaster” boasts an audio fingerprint identification system (with a sampling rate of 192kHz) that can identify unauthorized music clips with a 99.5% accuracy rate but with the possibility of a 0.05% false judgment. In accordance with the requirements of Section 31D of the 2022 Indian Copyright Act Amendment, failure by the software to timely update the Tamil film music library (28 days delayed) accounted for a 63% hike in user-generated content (UGC) infringement grievances. Statistics monitored by SONY Music Entertainment Japan show that 0.8% of the mixed-cut videos produced using the pre-installed tools of the device do not automatically include copyright notices, which is in contravention of Article 63 of the Japanese Copyright Law on secondary creation.
Pre-installed applications also pose cybersecurity risks. Vseebox’s “SmartHome Hub” app adopts the TLS 1.2 protocol (having a strength of 256 bits), but according to the MITRE CVE vulnerability database in 2023, its MQTT protocol has a vulnerability of session hijacking (attack success rate is 12%). It can break the requirement in Article 21 of the Cybersecurity Law of China on repairing vulnerability within 72 hours of time. In Brazil, the pre-installed file-sharing program “FastShare” increased the users’ likelihood of being sued for sharing unauthorized content by 19% because no AnatEL-certified P2P traffic monitoring module exists (based on Sao Paulo State Court data from 2023).
According to user agreement reading analysis of terms, the average completion rate of EULA reading of Vseebox’ pre-installed software applications is only 7.3%. Its binding data analysis condition obligatory for binding (Article 8.2) necessitates that users accept the provision of information like usage frequency (≥3 times/day), geographic location (accuracy ±15 meters), etc. Article 6(a) of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) makes the removal of pre-installed software freely allowed, while Vseebox’s 12 essential programs can only be uninstalled using engineering mode (needing a 27-bit key input). The potential fine for presumed violation of this provision could be up to 10% of the global yearly turnover (around 60 million euros in 2024).
One should add that Vseebox’s pre-installed browser “WebFlow” uses a real-time DRM detection system (response time 0.2 seconds), which automates resolution degradation (4K→480p) upon accessing infringing websites and saves the evidence chain (SHA-256 hash evidence storage). But a case in 2023 under Article 25 of Egypt’s Cybercrime Law proved that the pre-installed ad-blocking browser plugin installed on an equipment manufacturer caused the loss of 17% of the revenue of a specific news website. The court held that the equipment manufacturer must bear 30% joint liability. The South Korean KCC (Korea Communications Commission) test report stated that pre-installed app stores did not completely block the content that violated the Youth Protection Act (with a 0.7% missed detection rate), and therefore the usability score of the device in South Korea reduced by 14.5% (out of 100).
On the front of risk mitigation, Vseebox has reduced the number of data fields violating GDPR for pre-installed apps from 38 to 19 through firmware updates (the compliance percentage is currently at 94%), and provides developers with an API for legal compliance (comprising database updates for 83 nations’ copyright legislations, with a lag time of under 6 hours). However, readers should be kept aware that in Saudi Arabia and other strictly Anti-Cybercrime Law-compliant countries, even when pre-installed conformity tools are used, publishing religian-sensitive content can still result in a maximum five-year prison sentence (2022 Riyadh High Court precedent).