France Televisions drops Israeli firm from political program rollout

France Televisions has abandoned plans to use Israeli technology firm Terrific for an interactive viewer platform on its flagship political program "L'heure de verite" following internal concerns over data privacy and potential political profiling, French investigative outlet Mediapart reported on Monday.

The public broadcaster had intended to launch the tool — named Agora — on France 2's "The Hour of Truth" program scheduled for Oct. 8, allowing viewers to submit questions to presidential candidates and participate in real-time polls. The platform risked collecting sensitive political preference data from users of the Franceinfo website, according to the report.

CEO's political targeting background

Mediapart noted that Terrific chief executive Israel Grintz co-founded a separate company in 2018 that markets political campaign targeting tools. France Televisions ultimately assigned the project to its own technical teams after tests conducted by editorial and technical staff proved inconclusive, the broadcaster told Mediapart.

Separate tool removed over phishing risks

The investigative outlet also raised concerns regarding another Terrific-developed advertising tool, Shoppable, which was removed from the France.tv platform on Sept. 3. Users had reported that antivirus software detected phishing risks and data collection practices — including unique identifiers, visited URLs and content metadata — that could contribute to creating detailed user profiles.