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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'

#201

Post by IshKebab »

microtonal wrote: post #167
bryan0 wrote: post #121

> "LG TVs process voice data only when the voice button on the remote control is pressed and held, or when a wake word such as 'Hi LG' is recognized after the user has activated the Far-Field voice recognition feature." > LG went on to say that beyond the aforementioned instances, "the TVs do not collect or record ambient conversations." LG is contradicting themselves here. In order to detect a wake word then they mu…

LG is contradicting themselves here. In order to detect a wake word then they must be collecting or recording ambient conversations. I don't know how LG TVs do it, but e.g. many smartphones use a dedicated ASIC/audio processing chip that does not really record anything, but specifically listens for the wake word and discards all other audio to save power/battery life. I think this distinction is relevant, because the…

I think that was only done back when the processing power needed was relatively high, or for power constrained devices. I'd be really surprised if they do that for a smart TV.

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

#202

Post by Rohansi »

dwedge wrote: post #103
herpdyderp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten frustrated enough with my Apple TV that once my gen of hardware is no longer supported I'll replace it with a Raspberry Pi. I don't need fancy apps, just a browser for Jellyfin and (sometimes) YouTube. Any other incidental streaming service usage can also be done through a browser anyway.

I tried doing this and the video stutter on a raspberry pi made it too annoying. Probably better off using an N100

> Probably better off using an N100

Exactly this. Search for a mini PC and it'll have a cheap Intel SoC in it that performs way better than a Raspberry Pi 5 but cheaper (comes with everything for ~$300), and even consumes a similar amount of power.

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

#203

Post by yieldcrv »

yeah but what about third party analytics packages that may be abusing enterprising or privileged credentials

I think this is all disingenuous and will stay that way until the public asks the right questions to the right people

the CEO of the obvious organization can go in front of Congress and truthfully say “Senator, we are not listening, targeting is based on browsing patterns and data brokers”

while the targeted ads and timelines remain based on all those other inputs, and also audio

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

#204

Post by HPsquared »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #84
dd8601fn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The margin on tvs is slim. Companies like Vizio make vastly more on the ads and data than they do on the tvs. Some quarters they even take a loss. They took a $7m bath on hardware while booking about $120m on ads and data. We’re never getting good tv’s back. It’s only going to get worse. Now they’re starting in on monitors. The only lifeline would be consumer protection, which obviously won’t happen in the US.

So they shouldn’t bother selling the TVs at all? When they spend 400 on a tv and sell it for 410 and sell the data for 40 it doesn’t mean the data makes 4 times as much as the tv. The cost of gathering that data is still 400, they have nothing to sell without spending 409 in the hardware.

It seems conditions are such that the TV selling business is worthless (i.e. unprofitable) without collecting the data, and the TV data collection business can't work without selling TVs.

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

#205

Post by drnick1 »

If you have one of those TVs, disassemble it and unplug or remove the microphone, camera and the wireless adapter. Use it as a (rather nice) 4K monitor for a Linux box with Plasma in Bigscreen mode. Pair that with an airmouse remote and you get the most private and user-centric streaming/gaming platform that you can build. Put a decent GPU in the box, add an Xbox controller and Steam and you also built the world's best console.

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

#206

Post by brigade »

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…

For like a decade, the "opt-in" to ACR was included in the ToS agreement needed to use any smart features. Then at least some brands made the opt-in separate, but made it look like a recommendation engine or "help us improve your experience" agreement.

LG adopted the "Maybe Later" dark pattern for opt-in to ACR, at least in some markets. Though I guess you never know for sure with A/B testing.

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

#207

Post by 12_throw_away »

felixgallo wrote: post #171
bryan0 wrote: post #121

> "LG TVs process voice data only when the voice button on the remote control is pressed and held, or when a wake word such as 'Hi LG' is recognized after the user has activated the Far-Field voice recognition feature." > LG went on to say that beyond the aforementioned instances, "the TVs do not collect or record ambient conversations." LG is contradicting themselves here. In order to detect a wake word then they mu…

I don't know how LG is doing it, but I suspect that they are taking the same approach for wakewords as Alexa does/did. When I worked for Alexa, it was public knowledge that we used relatively inexpensive and low power chips dedicated to wakeword detection, and those would wake up the main chips if they believed that they heard the wakeword. To my understanding, we did this because doing cloud-based wakeword detection…

> Since Amazon took (and as far as I know still takes) voice privacy incredibly seriously

lol no https://apnews.com/article/amazon-privacy-echo-7fb3c19fa7f66...

> When I worked for Alexa

Look I know it's easy to believe these things when your paycheck depends upon it, god knows I've convinced myself of a convenient fact or two when it was necessary for me to get through the day. But afterwards, without a financial interest, you owe it to yourself to go back and think about it again.

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

#209

Post by phendrenad2 »

rpdillon wrote: post #18

LG's statement: > ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV’s internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV. So they are claiming that ACR is done entirely through audio processing, and no visual data from the screen itself is used? That...doesn't seem plausible. Th…

Has that paper been replicated?

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

#210

Post by al_borland »

alt227 wrote: post #172
al_borland wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was enabled when you accepted the terms and conditions when you first turned it on, or did a firmware update. LGs statment says this: > ACR is an optional feature that is turned off by default. To enable ACR, a user must accept LG’s Viewing Information Agreement, which describes how ACR works. Which I take to mean that when you agree to the terms, it enables the feature.

If the user needs to accept the viewing agreement to get through the initial setup, and agreement enables those features, then it's an opt-out feature, not an opt-in feature.

The only alternative would be to not accept the agreement and return the TV to the store, because there would be no way to go through the setup and actually use the TV.

I can't remember if this agreement was forced during the last setup I did, but most of these agreements are forced. There is no way to not check a box and still use the device with the desired featured turned off out of the gate.

Maybe they technically have it opt-out, but from a user perspective, that's not the experience. This is a dark pattern and their framing around this solidifies that I will never buy another LG product.

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