Telly, founded by Pluto TV co-founder Ilya Pozin, made headlines in May when it announced that it would offer customers a free 55-inch TV in exchange for a permanent second display for advertising. However, the bylaws turned out to have some rather interesting details.

The most disturbing of these is a line (link to Telly's website) that states that if you break the terms and conditions, you could be charged much more than the cost of the TV.

So what constitutes a violation of the terms and conditions? For starters, there is a clause that prohibits "physical modification or attachment of peripherals to a product not expressly approved by Telly," so you can't plug in a streaming stick to get around the ads.

Second, the Telly must be used as the "primary television in the home," must be connected to the Internet at all times, and cannot use an ad blocker on a Wi-Fi network to prevent ads from being displayed. In short, you could end up paying $1,000 for a mediocre 55-inch TV if you try to avoid seeing ads.

There is an old adage that I hold dear: "If a deal feels too good to be true, it probably is." As you can imagine, this free TV actually comes with many limitations.

Nevertheless, it is easy to argue both sides here. Getting "free" TV means giving up the right to viewing privacy and being willing to abide by some strict guidelines. For most people, that is a good enough reason not to sign up for the program.

But for the roughly 500,000 customers who have already signed up and are about to receive their TVs, it was not a compelling enough reason not to sign up. And on some level, I don't necessarily blame them.

It's tough to protect privacy these days. Just by using sites like Facebook and Twitter, you give away a lot of personal information. But at this point, if every site and smart platform tracks your data, at least you'll get free TV.

Want affordable TV that doesn't force you to watch ads? Check out the relatively platform-agnostic Roku Plus Series 4K QLED TV.