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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'

#211

Post by notpushkin »

llm_nerd wrote: post #161
sgc wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you giving a shady company with shady terms and shady history the benefit of the doubt?

Because when people cry wolf, and then there is no wolf, it actually harms the consumer by lowering everyone's guard. Have people not learned this yet? Gamers Nexus discovered recently, through their "AMD blacklisting" bit (when some relatively minor mid-lifecycle refresh of a product they didn't get a demo unit, so it turned into some "we are the truthsayers!" bit), that doing the Louis Rossmann routine earns them l…

Still doesn’t mean they’re not selling the data?

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

#212

Post by jeroenhd »

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?

It's technically possible but very unlikely. Running TTS continuously is a big battery drain and slows down the rest of the phone while you're using it. Google has a live TTS service for hearing impaired which I've run for a while to test it, and even with it practically built into the OS it's sucking up battery like you'd expect it to.

It's more likely that this is all due to external forces. Having your device on the same network, in close enough proximity to detect each other, for instance, combined with one of your friends having Googled the stuff you were talking about.

Or just basic data collection. There's the classic story about how supermarkets know you're pregnant before you do, just based on the groceries you buy (no, not pregnancy tests). Ad networks buy and collect a humongous amount of information about everyone and serve ultra specific targeted ads based on nothing more than pattern matching based on what the rest of humanity is doing.

It's impossible to rule out that the thing did run a 24/7 TTS service, but I think the depressing fact that ad networks don't need to listen to our conversations to know what we're talking about is more probable.

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

#213

Post by aryadee »

herpdyderp wrote: post #60
gnomesteel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t give your TV internet access, and use an Apple TV.

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.

A heads up: my CachyOS gaming PC has been doubling as my media box. But sadly, I've noticed that modern streaming DRM limits the quality because the OS+hardware is not "trusted". There's probably a way to hack around it, but I haven't gotten into it

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

#214

Post by grvbck »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #152
BeetleB wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It apparently is. Do you know the Nielsen Ratings? That's exactly how they know what people are watching these days. I've been contacted by them to be one of their subjects. They ship you a device that listens and recognizes based on content. They look for certai…

It's how things were always done. The content from broadcasters has/had audio watermarks...frequencies which humans can't hear.

As far as I know, watermarks never took off because the technical complexity and lack of standardization. Nielsen researched and developed ACR technology but it never required watermarks.

When Nielsen first started collecting data (1950s), they handed out diaries to a group of around 5 000 selected households. Nielsen would then collect these diaries and extrapolate viewing patterns across the entire population.

After that came phone surveys. Next step (1980s) was the "people meter", a small box attached to the TV that could automatically detect which channel was tuned and which household members were in the room.

In the 1990s the set-top box made all of that redundant as the cable and satellite providers could directly see which channel every single box was tuned to at all times.

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

#216

Post by wongarsu »

seemaze wrote: post #175
ygjb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of good reasons that are used to paper over the abuse cases. Microphones in tvs are a useful accessibility feature when they enable voice commands for the user, and allow them to be used as voice assistants. They also enable tvs with a camera and microphone to be used as video calling or audio calling interfaces. Used well we get star Trek view screens, used poorly we get little brother monitoring. For…

Are there any useful resources for finding devices that don't have surveillance apparatus built in? I'm still not purchasing a television. The last thing I need is more screen time in my life.

You'd be looking for what's now called a "dumb tv". But those are getting rare, because TVs that can't sell your watch data have to be more expensive to make up for that, and that doesn't sell. Commercial screens are an option, as are computer monitors. Or getting a smart tv and never connecting it to the internet. So far nobody has started shipping TVs with a mobile connection to exfiltrate data, as far as we know. Unlike cars.

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

#217

Post by bryan0 »

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…

Fair points, but if a device can detect words in my ambient conversations and depending on what it detects (accurate or not) it can send that audio to the cloud, I would describe that device as “collecting or recording ambient conversations”

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

#219

Post by beloch »

LG’s Approach to Privacy

Our approach is guided by four principles:

Transparency – Helping users understand how smart TV features work and how related data may be used.

User Choice – Giving users meaningful control over optional features and services.

Informed Consent – Supporting informed decisions through clear and manageable consent choices.

Continuous Improvement – Continuously improving privacy controls, transparency, and security protections.

--------------------

Transparency:

This document isn't terribly easy to understand by the standards of traditional TV's. You have to pay close attention to figure out what is and isn't going on, and when. It also should have been taped to the front of every LG TV when it comes out of the box.

User Choice:

There is extensive explanation of how what LG TV's are doing isn't nefarious, but the fact remains that there's no switch to turn it off. Why not just put a simple hardware on/off switch on these TV"s to turn off all connectivity? Maybe some users want dumb TV's, or maybe they just don't want to worry about all of this.

Informed Consent:

Buyers apparently consented to this at the store. Now you're finally informing them. That's now how informed consent works.

Continuous Improvement:

I'll believe LG and other Smart TV manufacturers are serious about this when they add a hardware wifi on/off switch, and not a moment before.

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

#220

Post by initramfs »

Rohansi wrote: post #193
roscas wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People worried about LG. Use Android, iOS and Windows. Use Facebook and TikTok! Use WhatApp and get shocked TikTok keeps all data, video, images, text and reads it. Same as WhatsApp. Drive a Tesla. Have that Ring on the door and other devices. Go figure. People are strange. And yes, that ME and PSP are on every cpu since I can't remember, Thinkpad T60 was probably one of the last ones without spy tech.

FYI AMD's PSP does not connect to the internet like Intel's ME does.

much love to AMD.
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