Its unfortunate the average consumer has little means to meaningfully combat this. Smart TV have malicious apps? GG. Some app that bundled in the SDK? Good luck for them to detect it. Even "free" vpns I wouldnt put it past some for not thinking too deeply about at least compared to the "passive income" schemes or pirate iptv boxes.

Its simple for someone technically inclined to block DNS and any actual attempts at outbound traffic to platforms like bright data but that aint something the average joe can do. I'm rather surprised ISPs havent taken more to trying to censor and stomp it out on their end, or at least getting a piece of the pie financially themselves.