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

Post by phil21 » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 10:44 PM UTC

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.

Post by BLKNSLVR » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 10:49 PM UTC

yakk0 wrote: post #321

ryandrake wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturers just need to realize that LANs exist and allow their devices to be used with the Internet turned off. When I'm sitting in my home and I want to turn off the AC unit in the other room or close my garage door, there's no reason I should have to do an IP roundtrip to the manufacturer's server. Both devices are on my LAN. They should just talk to each other. This has been a solved problem for decades.

I have a Vizio TV that was advertised as a Chromecast TV, and I got it because of that. It was HDMI and Chromecast only. A few years later they did a silent update that added apps and generally made the UI much slower. I mainly use it with an AppleTV or game consoles, but it still irks me that they completely changed what was in my mind a nearly perfect TV.

Post by qlte » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 10:50 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #166

politician wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Later, AcmeTV has a 1MB lookup table of wake words that can be updated OTA. Whenever a wake word is detected, it triggers an alert flag with the device id, word id, and timestamp, and then broadcasts it out as high-frequency sound through the speakers. Nearby, another AcmeTV or business partner device picks up the sound and sends it to AcmeHQ. The former device "never transmits your viewing behavior to Acme". The lat…

I endorse the cynicism, but I feel that's moving the goalposts a tad, from "good is impossible" to "good is improbable". Or, in a heavily-paraphrased nutshell: Politician: "Watch-words are ALWAYS evil-mode. They have to be lying." Terr: "No. Here's a watch-word which would be good-mode." Politician: "Well, it'll still *become* evil-mode, eventually."

Post by beached_whale » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 10:55 PM UTC

tredre3 wrote: post #256

cassianoleal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any case, "We don't record continuously" is still recording. They should not be recording at all!

Enough with the knee jerk reactions. They have to record in some cases. You don't have to like those features, but plenty of people want those features. - The television has voice control. - The television has a manually triggered speech-to-text feature so you don't have to type with tv remote.

Post by beached_whale » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

isp wrote: post #292

aeternum wrote: post #23

Note that their statement could also be true if they record 99% of the time. We need to start calling companies out for meaningless weasel statements like "We don't record continuously". The majority of the problem is also simply the ability to record. Putting a remote control listening hardware on a device that runs a plethora of 3rd party apps and with full connection to the internet means that even if LG isn't con…

Yes. Another example: > If no wake word is detected, the audio is processed locally, promptly deleted, and is not transmitted to LG servers. This statement could still be true when: * The audio transmission is to non-LG servers (e.g., Alphonso). * The audio isn't transmitted, but the text transcription is.