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LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

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Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#111

Post by OroPla »

al_borland wrote: post #6
gus_massa wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything was opt-in Opt-in used to mean that it was disabled until you explicitly click somewhere to enable it.

I probably should have said "everything was already enabled"... Opt-in/out was on the mind, and neither seemed like the right wording to convey that the choice was already made for me in the wrong direction.... I was opted in automatically.

If the checkbox is already ticked it is called opt-out. You have to toggle the checkbox to not be activated. The other way around is opt-in. The checkbox is empty and if you want to enable it you have to take action.

Opt-in: take action to have the feature.

Opt-out: take action to not have the feature.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#112

Post by cogman10 »

jimt1234 wrote: post #67
runjake wrote: post #52

> "LG also said that its features like “Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional,” and “not enabled by default.” I am absolutely certain that ACR was enabled on our new TV by default, back some years ago. I am nearly certain their voice recognition, and advertising spying were enabled on our TV by default. If none of this is truly "enabled by default" then th…

A few months ago, my Roku TV started displaying these weird popups, saying something like, "Looks like you're watching college basketball. Did you know Roku-TV also has college basketball?" - something like that. Well, for the Roku device, yes, there was a setting I could disable, but (1) Roku pushed this 'feature' and made it default without my knowledge/consent, and (2) the config setting says the popups will stop,…

Pretty much the exact reason I stopped using Roku. I bought a streaming device to stream, but apparently roku decided selling devices wasn't lucrative enough so they started selling ads instead.

I really wish there was a better way to do a media center linux.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#113

Post by Izikiel43 »

ZoneZealot wrote: post #50
seanalltogether wrote: post #20

ACR is "not enabled by default"? Is this actually true or is it one of those weasley technicalities where the tv ships with it turned off, but once you connect the tv to the internet it turns on?

Technically when you turn the TV on for the first time, ACR is not enabled. Ergo, not enabled by default. Sure, to use the TV you need to go past the EULA screen. And the button right in front of you, pre-selected - is agree to all terms. And after pressing OK, you now have ACR turned on. But you did that, it wasn't on by default. Okay I can take my soul sucking corporate hat off now.

Yeah, that's why I only agreed to the minimal terms needed to use the tv, everything else is unchecked

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#114

Post by antoniojtorres »

jimt1234 wrote: post #67
runjake wrote: post #52

> "LG also said that its features like “Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional,” and “not enabled by default.” I am absolutely certain that ACR was enabled on our new TV by default, back some years ago. I am nearly certain their voice recognition, and advertising spying were enabled on our TV by default. If none of this is truly "enabled by default" then th…

A few months ago, my Roku TV started displaying these weird popups, saying something like, "Looks like you're watching college basketball. Did you know Roku-TV also has college basketball?" - something like that. Well, for the Roku device, yes, there was a setting I could disable, but (1) Roku pushed this 'feature' and made it default without my knowledge/consent, and (2) the config setting says the popups will stop,…

Same experience here. Roku has been doing opt-in ACR for a while now. Pulled the ethernet cable out that same day.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#115

Post by layer8 »

seanalltogether wrote: post #20

ACR is "not enabled by default"? Is this actually true or is it one of those weasley technicalities where the tv ships with it turned off, but once you connect the tv to the internet it turns on?

Why don’t you read LG’s actual statement, which states that it “requires separate explicit user opt-in consent and can be disabled at any time through the TV settings.”

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#116

Post by semiquaver »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #81
Phemist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also debunked in the Gamer Nexus video. The TV will scan for public wifis and connect. Watching the video, it also seemed like a "missed opportunity" for LG to not create a mesh network of LG devices that would help eachother connect to the internet. So the LG device on your neighbours wifi might help your not connected TV to some tasty internet access. Or at least to unload its cache of A(V)CR fingerprints. LG is tr…

There are so many misunderstandings about that video. Which ain’t surprising as it was longer than a movie and mainly nonsense about what it can do rather than what it does do.

Agreed. I’ve come to believe that the video’s benefit from bringing awareness to the issue is outweighed by how misleading it is. Massive amounts of the video were “we hacked the TV and made it do [bad thing]” and was reported as “LG TVs do [bad thing]!”

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#117

Post by OroPla »

Koshcheiushko wrote: post #79

I've one question: I've used android phone (realme, which is chinese). And i remember that whenever we used to discuss somethings among our friends, i started used to get ads realated to that on my laptop, phone within atmost a hour. So, was realme transcribing all conversations and uploading it? Can someone answer?

You don't need monitoring for that to work. Just something like "Hey, Google". The device knows a bunch of keywords and when it hears them it's bingo. As long as your laptop and phone are logged into the same local network with the same public IP they'll get the same ads.

And your phone most likely already listens all the time to catch an "Hey, Google" (or something similar).

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#118

Post by Silhouette »

ZoneZealot wrote: post #50
seanalltogether wrote: post #20

ACR is "not enabled by default"? Is this actually true or is it one of those weasley technicalities where the tv ships with it turned off, but once you connect the tv to the internet it turns on?

Technically when you turn the TV on for the first time, ACR is not enabled. Ergo, not enabled by default. Sure, to use the TV you need to go past the EULA screen. And the button right in front of you, pre-selected - is agree to all terms. And after pressing OK, you now have ACR turned on. But you did that, it wasn't on by default. Okay I can take my soul sucking corporate hat off now.

Sure, to use the TV you need to go past the EULA screen.

And that's where the problem is.

TVs should be TVs. Phones should be phones. Cars should be cars. If the manufacturers can't help themselves adding other stuff that is for their own benefit and not the product owner's and some of it so bad that it needs legal weasel words to CTA and competition in the market is insufficient to kill these practices off then it's time for heavy-handed regulation.

Maybe we say you can't sell any product in these categories in our country with any remote connectivity at all except for specifically permitted uses. Maybe the penalty for wilful violation is a warning with a big fine. Maybe the penalty for repeated wilful violation is fines that are an existential threat to the business and personally barring the corporate executives from holding corporate office for the next five years. That kind of thing.

Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'

#119

Post by thfuran »

gus_massa wrote: post #5
al_borland wrote: post #3

They say these features are opt-in and they reject dark patterns, but in my experience setting up LG TVs, everything was opt-in and I had to manually hunt through all the menus to turn this stuff off. Their statements don’t align with the reality I’ve experienced as a customer. My TV is not connected to the network, because the setup process left me with 0 trust that LG wouldn’t be collecting information regardless o…

> everything was opt-in Opt-in used to mean that it was disabled until you explicitly click somewhere to enable it.

It still does.
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