Well, this problem was solved for years ago : only use TV as a dumb screen, never ever connect it to Internet. Solved. Only use smart devices for content that you "trust" (if that's even possible in 2026 for any of them ...).
LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
451–460 of 513 posts
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#452Earlier 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's probably easier to do and every bit as accurate as just using a screenshot. And it's still exactly what I don't want them doing. There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their…
To me, it's not even about why they're doing it (building an advertising profile). I don't want them doing it at all, for any reason. When I buy something from the store, my relationship is between me and the store, for the 30 seconds it takes for me to pay for it. I don't want an ongoing relationship with the device manufacturer. I don't want to be tethered in any way to the manufacturer. I don't want to have an acc…
Wait your saying it’s not cool if you buy carrots from the grocery store that have embedded sensors so that when you eat them and they pass through you they build a health profile and determine what types of supplements are best to advertise to you?
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh. I didn't know you could change the URL. It used to point to https://www.theverge.com/tech/994333/lg-responds-to-tv-spyin...
You can't. The admins can.
It now looks directly to the press release. Wish I could delete or edit my comment because people keep downvoting me for looking like a lunatic I guess. But overall this is what I wanted. Just the primary source. Not like it was in Korean
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
> processing is not recording Debatable and definitely semantic - at the very least this requires putting the audio into a buffer, so a newly mallocd block of memory. Sure, it’s not a recording in a conventional sense, but it is a copy of data.
This is such a programmer view. No lawyer would think that a graphic equaliser records audio.
You'll be delighted to learn that this exact reasoning had, in fact, been used by the copyright industry against (illegal) movie streaming websites. If I remember correctly, this was in Germany and was, after a relatively short time, no longer accepted by the courts.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#455If you use streaming at all, you can't defend against all data collection, but you can minimize it. Don't put your TV on your network. Use a streaming box and keep it powered off unless you're using it. Not just turned off, but unplugged.
A TV that's plugged into power and is on your LAN is way too opaque about what it's doing when, and it has access to too many ways of sensing what you are doing.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
They realize. They hate it and wish it would go away. LAN connectivity makes it really hard to spy on you, inject ads, require subscriptions, and brick perfectly functional devices so you have to buy new ones.
No it doesn’t? They can do all these things just fine over a LAN connection (assuming it routes externally). If you can firewall your LAN - you can also firewall your WiFi.
“If you can firewall your LAN - you can also firewall your WiFi.”
Huh? Your WiFi is (part of) your LAN.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#457Earlier 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's probably easier to do and every bit as accurate as just using a screenshot. And it's still exactly what I don't want them doing. There's literally zero reason for LG to be building an advertising profile on me because I was foolish enough to buy one of their…
> an advertising profile It's going to be so easy to determine who you voted for, given a record of every TV show and news programme you've watched, to 90% accuracy. Or to determine if you'd be a "corporate culture fit" when you're next looking for a job. Or an apartment. Or to find whether anything matching the hash of some trade secret documents was displayed on your TV (or ever connected to it [1]) - the "advertis…
The difference with the book example is that having to hand over a list of books is tangible whereas technological profiling is extremely subtle and abstract in comparison. As IT professionals it's of course easy to see the ways that this kind of stuff can be abused, whereas the probability that someone outside of the industry or otherwise not interested in computers to be "woke" enough about the digital panopticon is diminishingly rare.
And there's of course also Sinclair's law, so even people who should know better might be either willingly ignorant or just not care if it means that they can maintain their quality of life, moral bankruptcy be damned. Similar arguments can be raised for example with the anthropogenic climate catastrophe or other abhorrent phenomena where there's a big chasm in the knowledge between laymen vs experts.
It is exceedingly difficult to convince someone that something is a problem unless said problem is staring the person in the face.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#458Recent and related: LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49612329 - Sept 2026 (359 comments) GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605424 - Sept 2026 (133 comments) A Screensaver for LG's Spying Smart TVs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605356 - Sept 2026 (13 comments) LG TVs aren't the only one…
Why would anyone connect their TV to the Internet? It’s been known for years that it spies, although maybe not to this extent. Or are these TVs auto connecting open WiFi or the neighbor’s Xfinity WiFi?
> Or are these TVs auto connecting open WiFi or the neighbor’s Xfinity WiFi?
Yup. How does that make you feel? Because for me, it was the moment when the border to not only blatantly, but also actively evil was passed.
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why was it connected to the network?
Chromecast requires a network
Re: LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
#460[deleted]