By way of CordCuttersNews, we learn that Roku is now selling interactive advertising widgets against television commercials displayed on Roku televisions (shown above). What makes this somewhat different from TiVo’s historic approach (shown below), and unsettling to some, is that our Roku smart televisions are watching what’s on our screen (since at least 2017) vs the TiVo set-top/cable box that was aware as the content delivery mechanism itself. But the ad overlays don’t strike me as a huge deal.
While Roku freely admits their primary business is advertising, they’ve always done a reasonable job of balancing the user experience against commercial disruption. And, I assume like TiVo, they’ll limit these interactive advertising units to the product/company of the underlying commercial.