LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby

Posted by sbulaev 6 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by dang 1 hour ago

There have been quite a few submissions on this topic. The biggest one is:

216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49592375 - Sept 2026 (971 comments so far)

(Normally we'd merge this one thither but it's already so big maybe we'll just treat it as a follow-up)

Comment by woodgala 2 hours ago

The fact they they can connect to Xfinity networks without consent is shocking too. For all those “just don’t connect the cable” responses, it still connects! And what happens when they go GSM?

Sure you can try to open up the box and yank the WiFi antenna… until it is so deeply integrated into the board that you cannot.

This isn’t just an “oh well” situation. This needs a law.

Comment by coldpie 32 minutes ago

> The fact they they can connect to Xfinity networks without consent is shocking too. For all those “just don’t connect the cable” responses, it still connects!

No, it doesn't.

Comment by Macha 11 minutes ago

I was wondering where this claim even came from.

It's from a comment, not even the article or the video it's based on. It's just the same internet rumor mill that's been going around for years, but more official because someone quotes it on an discussion on a news article because someone posted it in the comments of the article.

Anyone who's tried to test this theory has not proved it. A few claims in support forums are more likely to be people's guests or family just connecting it to the wifi.

Comment by woodgala 6 minutes ago

It is LITERALLY in the video.

Comment by krunck 1 hour ago

This needs people to open their TVs, determine the modifications needed to neuter the spy functionality, and publish the procedure.

Comment by red-iron-pine 1 hour ago

as the parent poster said, that works until they bury it so hard that you can't find it, or that it can't be removed without impacting service.

all LG needs to do is put the connection inline to something important like responding to your remote control or changing channels. rip it out and it won't work anymore. LG then curses you for voiding the warranty and tells you go to go hell when you complain.

it needs a law.

Comment by sgerenser 41 minutes ago

The article says that? I searched for Xfinity and nothing came up.

Comment by woodgala 5 minutes ago

Watch the original video posted yesterday.

Comment by miguel-muniz 5 hours ago

I wish there was some regulation that would force TVs to have a "dumb" mode. When the colors on our previous living room TV started to go out my dad ended up buying a new huge Vizio during black friday for really cheap. He left it to me to set up, since I'm the tech guy of the family, as you all probably understand.

I was surprised that the first thing I was prompted to do was to download an app and sign up for an account. The TV would not work unless I was signed in (or at the very least the option was so well hidden I didn't see one). Of course the sign up asks for PII like my name and phone number.

Vizio was bought out by Walmart a while back, with the intent of expanding Walmart's advertising empire.

It's really unfortunate that the TV market has ended up the way it has. My family still has a few CRTs going that have been working every day for decades, just turn it on and TV immediately starts playing. I miss that level of simplicity.

Comment by _fat_santa 2 hours ago

I bought a Hisense TV a few years back and when I set it up, I could not proceed without downloading the companion app. I was curious so I called support and told them that I didn't have a phone and asked how I could activate the TV.

Support had no answer for me other than "well you need the app". When I told them I didn't have a phone to install it on they just said "no that's not correct, you must have a phone..."

Comment by mingus88 2 hours ago

This should be an accessibility complaint under the ADA. That should be a big money settlement.

There are numerous disabilities that would cause someone to not have a smartphone capable of running an app. Hell, even addiction to social media or porn could satisfy

Comment by stvltvs 2 hours ago

You should have told them the required phone was missing from the box.

Comment by necovek 2 hours ago

"I have a PinePhone with phosh, which is neither Android nor iOS — where can I get the app?"

Obviously, it still won't get you anywhere except maybe hasten the return as it is not compatible to your environment.

Comment by anigbrowl 2 hours ago

Given how few people have landlines they probably thought you were trying to prank them.

Comment by Henchman21 1 hour ago

> so I called support and told them that I didn't have a phone

Did they ask what device you were calling from? :)

Comment by indoordin0saur 2 hours ago

> "no that's not correct, you must have a phone..."

Well, I guess they were right if you were lying.

Comment by type0 30 minutes ago

Just because you can call doesn't mean you can install an app, plenty of people use dumb phones

Comment by bluefirebrand 1 hour ago

That doesn't justify assuming that everyone must have a phone, nor does it make it okay to enforce that people must have a phone to use their goddamn TV

Comment by mikestew 4 hours ago

I was surprised that the first thing I was prompted to do was to download an app and sign up for an account. The TV would not work unless I was signed in

I missed the part of your comment where you put it back in the box and returned it.

(Yeah, I know, understandable reasons. But that's exactly what I would do if it were going in my house.)

Comment by michaelt 3 hours ago

The problem is for TV manufacturers to change their ways, a lot of TVs will need to be returned.

And your average Smart TV buyer is prepared to sign into Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video, Crunchyroll, Youtube etc - that's the whole point of buying a smart TV. The only returns will be from the minority who are happy to sign up and sign in for streaming services, but who balk at one more account.

Personally, I'm about to return a smart TV (because it sucks) and replace it with a dumb screen. But realistically - I don't imagine these things get returned in sufficient numbers for vendors to change their ways.

Comment by xmprt 3 hours ago

> your average Smart TV buyer is prepared to sign into Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video, Crunchyroll, Youtube etc

I think this is starting to change a bit especially as companies crack down on password sharing. Once the dam breaks, there's gonna be a pretty drastic and unstoppable migration towards the "dumb" TV products + more open alternatives. I'm already seeing a lot of families start to move to DVDs and Blurays for kids who just watch the same 5 movies on repeat anyway.

This migration is already happening away from Windows. Gaming was the big moat that Windows had but now with Steam Proton and better Linux alternatives, a ton of people are starting to move away and while it's not a significant majority yet, I think the tides have already turned and there's not much Microsoft can do to turn it back.

Comment by RajT88 3 hours ago

I think we won't get meaningful change until a data broker gets hacked and a huge number of people (including elected officials), have their data on display for all to see.

Comment by lazide 2 hours ago

Why do you think the current admin is always creating so many distractions?

That has been happening for years.

Comment by forgotmypw17 3 hours ago

It starts with one.

Comment by NichoPaolucci 3 hours ago

I have a pretty nice Samsung that I purchased maybe 5 years ago. When I initially purchased it, it was great. No account needed. Did every thing I wanted from a TV (I want it to be dumb)

I refused to update it, because I knew that at some point they would add mandatory accounts or other bloatware. Fantastic for 2 years or so.

My gf started living with me and updated it accidentally/didn't know. It now has it's own entire OS that requires 2 accounts - a Google account and a Samsung account, I believe. Devastating.

Mandatory accounts for everything. Forcing people to download certain applications. Turning off functionality if there's no subscription to X or Y. I feel we really started to take a step back for software usefulness in the late 20teens...

Comment by indoordin0saur 2 hours ago

Never let your TV know your wifi password. Use a firestick or a little PC for streaming, etc.

Comment by mingus88 2 hours ago

I read they’ll find xfinitywifi or any open access point and do it without your consent

Comment by hdgvhicv 2 hours ago

If you join them to a black holed or tarpit said I wonder if that protects against connecting elsewhere.

Sure you can connect, but you’ll find all your tcp connections dying.

Comment by type0 25 minutes ago

Enjoy watching a spinning wheel for the whole time then "Your TV is trying to connect..."

Comment by cobbzilla 2 hours ago

Factory reset?

Comment by pino83 1 hour ago

You let Facebook pass... What to expect?

Comment by csallen 1 hour ago

My Samsung TV has some stupid voice assistant inside of it called Bixby. Not only is it useless, it's extremely annoying.

I've had multiple experiences where it muted the show I was watching, so that it could try to listen more closely, after being triggered by something said in the show itself. Samsung's software engineers literally built a TV that interrupts itself.

Needless to say, I disabled it. But every week or two, when my TV auto-updates itself, it re-enables Bixby, at least to the degree where it starts listening again, and then mutes whatever I'm watching to ask me if I want to re-enable Bixby.

I would pay 2x for a dumber version of my otherwise-excellent TV.

Comment by forinti 3 hours ago

This sort of thing should be labelled.

Just as food has warnings (too much sugar, too much salt, etc), so electronics should be labelled: "requires online registration" and "captures conversations" and "scans your network".

Comment by CharlesW 4 hours ago

"Commercial displays" are "dumb mode" TVs. Alternatively, you can get an Apple TV and keep the TV off networks or in network jail.

Comment by patch_collector 3 hours ago

Network jail isn't a 100% for these -- in their testing, they determined that they could connect to the public Comcast networks that Comcast tries to blanket areas with. So even if you don't let it access your own networks, it will look for other ways to phone home.

Comment by tensor 2 hours ago

No, they did not find this. They speculated that in the future the tvs "could" do that and that there is precedent with other devices. But despite this being repeated over and over as fact, it is in fact not proven to be the case.

Comment by whateveracct 2 hours ago

The point is more that LG has proven fully untrustworthy so the fact that it is possible is troubling.

And ofc, an adversary can operate that way.

Comment by tensor 1 hour ago

Yes, it's extremely troubling, and not constrained to tv manufacturers. We need some sort of legal overhaul to protect people from this sort of thing.

For example, I was looking at Bird scooters/e-bikes while travelling since they were the local provider of rentable bikes. I noticed a particularly aggressive EULA declaration in their app and decide to skim through the EULA. In it, they had language that stated that I gave them unlimited rights to my likeness and voice. So by clicking this EULA this company could then harvest any photos of me, interviews, what have you, clone my voice or likeness with AI, use it for ads or even sell it to others to use! Needles to say I uninstalled instead of agreeing.

But how many other things did I unknowingly sign to in these EULAs? It's genuinely crazy.

Comment by 2III7 4 hours ago

Samsungs commercial grade signage displays have become quite smart and so have LGs.

Comment by lostlogin 3 hours ago

> commercial grade signage displays

If there is ever a campaign where people smash these, I’m in.

Driving around a shopping strip while the damn things flash and change is awful. It’s distracting too, and seems likely to cause crashes.

Comment by 3 hours ago

Comment by theandrewbailey 2 hours ago

I work in the refurb department of an ewaste recycling company. I had a TV on a roller stand come in some months ago. When I turned it on, I realized that it wasn't any ordinary consumer-grade TV, but a commercial grade one. It lacked any sort of smart functionality, had no apps, and reported DCI 4K resolution (4096x2160) when connected to a PC. I found a remote that worked with it (even though it was a 'smart' TV remote). I listed it as a "dumb TV" for $200 and it took a while to sell.

Comment by joekrill 3 hours ago

> Alternatively, you can get an Apple TV and keep the TV off networks or in network jail.

The problem is that a lot of TVs won't even let you use it that way without signing in or downloading an app first. My Vizio wouldn't do anything until I acknowledged a terms of service screen. The only way I could do that was by downloading the Vizio app and connecting it to my network.

Comment by kazinator 3 hours ago

I would march it back to the store in that situation.

They are getting away with this shit because the return rates are low.

Bumping up the return rate isn't something you can count on others to do; if you don't return it, you're part of the problem.

Comment by ssl-3 1 hour ago

The cost of returning the thing to the store can be high.

The packaging can be precarious; what was once stapled cardboard is now taped, what was once a neat and rigid rectangle is now kind of floppy and misshapen and getting worse every time it moves.

Besides, they're big things that can be challenging to move around. Doing it solo is mostly a non-starter.

But sure: Eventually, it gets wheeled back in through the same front door of the store that it came out of just a few hours before.

Now the real fun starts: They don't want it back. They hem and haw. Other associates arrive to reinforce the ultimately firm standpoint of "No."

You point at the return policy on the wall. You read the relevant passages aloud, word by word. You tell them, over and over again, that you're here to return merchandise.

Some smart-sounding person shows up, gives everything an appraisal, and explains "Sir, it even says DO NOT RETURN TO STORE right here on the box!"

It's not clear who got loud first, but it's quite obviously the case that things are definitely loud now.

Finally, the store manager appears. He just needs this fucking circus to end. He asks no questions, issues the refund without hesitation, and everyone walks away pissed off.

---

I mean, I guess that's resolution.

But what often happens instead is this: The TV is unpacked. It's mounted on the wall or arranged just-so on whatever furniture is involved, requiring sometimes-tricky bits of assembly the whole way through. There's excited anticipation in the air about the new widget and how much better it is going to be than the old widget.

Finally, you switch it on and discover that it can't proceed without a network login. This raises a series of red flags that you find impossible to ignore.

So you go out back to cool off for a few minutes, think about life's decisions, and Google ways to get this 2026 build of this TV that nobody online ever mentions the specific model number of to work offline without any connection.

And the missus knows how these things can go. So while that's happening, she signs the thing into the network and gets it set up with an account "just to see how it really works."

Now the TV is connected and it's never going back to the store.

The end.

Comment by JacobKfromIRC 1 hour ago

My family bought a big Vizio TV around a year ago (IIRC), and I'm pretty sure we didn't have to sign in to anything for it to work. We didn't connect it to the internet. It often prompts for an update to the remote but the prompt goes away on its own if you don't do anything.

The model is V4K75X-0810 on firmware 86.710.52.1-4. The "Last Update" field says "Dec 31, 1969 04:00 PM" :D

The remote firmware is 6.02.1. I wonder if the reason it prompts for an update is because the TV has a newer remote firmware built-in or if it is just guessing that a newer update is available online.

I don't remember if we had to do anything weird to get the TV to set up without internet.

I agree regulation is probably needed.

Comment by autoexec 4 hours ago

> I was surprised that the first thing I was prompted to do was to download an app and sign up for an account. The TV would not work unless I was signed in (or at the very least the option was so well hidden I didn't see one). Of course the sign up asks for PII like my name and phone number.

The only solution we have to this is to return the TV as defective and buy something else until you find something that works without an account or an app. A sane country would have regulations that make spying on you illegal but our government works for corporations instead of the public so they'll never protect us when there's money to be made off of us.

Comment by smallmancontrov 3 hours ago

> our government works for corporations instead of the public

Yes, but we cheat ourselves out of change with learned helplessness. Did you see how much hatred the business community directed at Lina Khan when she started dusting off the old antitrust machinery? That happened recently. It can happen again. It was on the ballot, and it will be again.

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 3 hours ago

> Did you see how much hatred the business community directed at Lina Khan

Lina Khan truly has the interests of consumers at heart.

The hatred was not just right-wing. Many lefties hated her, too.

The common thread seems to be billionaires.

Comment by smallmancontrov 3 hours ago

Yes, I saw that too, it was quite remarkable. Still, learned helplessness would have us believe that such an appointment was impossible and yet it happened, and it happened in a Democratic party that leaned "more lib than left" to an even greater degree than it does today, or will in 2028.

So when the billionaires twirl their moustaches and say "Silly kids! You can't possibly defeat me, why do you even try?" (or, more realistically, sponsor a lackey to promote that message) one should try to have at least as much gumption as a child facing down a cartoon villain who recognizes this as smack talk rather than deep philosophical truth. The progressives of 100 years ago faced down the first round of Robber Barons and won. We've done this before and we can do it again.

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 58 minutes ago

You'll notice that this was not a popular discussion.

HN users don't like it when billionaires are dissed, as many want to achieve that, for themselves. Very much a reflection on the demographics of this site. Maybe not a bad thing, but kind of amusing.

Comment by thesuitonym 3 hours ago

Even if every single person who wants dumb TVs bought a smart TV and returned it as defective, I doubt it would even be a noticeable increase to the number of defective TVs returned.

Comment by Jolter 1 hour ago

False premise. Many (most?) smart TVs will work without first connecting them to the network.

Comment by thesuitonym 1 hour ago

That's not related to my premise at all.

Comment by indoordin0saur 2 hours ago

Most TVs don't require an internet connection. I have an LG tv that I have never allowed to connect to the internet. It complains from time to time, but other than that it gives me no problem. It's connected to my PC through which I stream, watch youtube or play video games.

Comment by throw0101d 3 hours ago

> I wish there was some regulation that would force TVs to have a "dumb" mode.

Some manufacturers have "business" lines, for things like kiosks and in-store displays, e.g.:

* https://www.samsung.com/us/business/commercial-tvs/all-comme...

* https://www.samsung.com/ca/business/smart-signage/

Comment by philistine 25 minutes ago

Do not use a display made for commercial kiosk use as a tv.

They have terrible response times, brightness levels meant to be seen under sunlight, not for the fine differences of movies.

Comment by sdcfgy 4 hours ago

This is one of the many reasons I haven't owned a TV for the last 5 years. I just watch stuff on the computer, or not at all. It's actually nice not having it looming over me.

Comment by Grombobulous 3 hours ago

I love my friend’s house that has no TV and that’s exactly what they do. The room aesthetically looks so nice without the screen in it.

However, the laptop solution tends to only work if you’re single or have no family. The TV is unfortunately a very useful device.

Comment by no_wizard 3 hours ago

Projectors are still valid, and often superior, alternatives to TVs.

They’re definitely more work to get right though

Comment by kuboble 3 hours ago

Welp... I bought recently a projector.

It wouldn't start in a dumb mode without first establishing internet connection and a Google account.

Comment by anvuong 1 hour ago

How is projector superior? More often than not, with the same amount of money spent, projector produces worse image quality, consumes more power, and don't last as long.

Comment by Grombobulous 3 hours ago

Interesting idea I never thought of, though for my purposes my room gets way too much natural light for a projector to be viable.

Comment by d3Xt3r 2 hours ago

There are ambient light rejection (ALR) screens available now that make projectors viable even under bright lights. Problem is, the decent ones are quite pricey, sometimes costing almost as much as the projector themselves. You could easily buy two OLED TVs for the price of a decent short throw laser projector + ALR.

The other issue issue is that most, if not all, modern projectors are also "smart", so you may run into the same privacy issues as TVs...

Maybe the best option is to just buy a PC monitor and pair it up with decent speakers, the only issue being you can't get larger screens like TVs.

Comment by cobbzilla 2 hours ago

blackout shades go a long way, but if you’ve got huge bay windows that’s probably too much.

If it’s close to good, and you need a little more brightness, there are newer screens that reflect much more light. more reflective = pricier, but there’s a decent value/sweet spot.

Comment by deltoidmaximus 3 hours ago

LG recently was in the news for loading Microsoft's utility/driver update mechanism with crapware that auto installs (by default) when you hitch one of their monitors to a Windows PC. I fear they just haven't gotten around to fully abusing monitor users yet.

Comment by codazoda 4 hours ago

My research is a few months old, but at the time Vizio looked like the least bad option, largely because a lawsuit had pushed them to narrow what they collect.

Comment by chorizo 3 hours ago

There is no obligation to be truthful when it comes to providing PII for advertising. Register using a throwaway email. If an app install is mandatory, use an android emulator (set an uuid if needed). Ideally, the tv won't have ongoing internet access beyond what's required for initial setup. If not possible, at least use PiHole or similar to block telemetry.

Comment by arealaccount 3 hours ago

You will still need to agree to the offline spying ToS

Comment by sidewndr46 3 hours ago

The dumb mode is when you unplug it from the wall

Comment by Mindwipe 3 hours ago

You can literally just buy a Sony and do this. And several other manufacturers that run Google TV can be switched to dumb mode.

Comment by lostlogin 3 hours ago

Sony tv with an AppleTV and a pihole.

Comment by hn_submit 4 hours ago

The Koreans are taking a huge risk destroying the trust they've built over the last 30 years with this incessant spying and adware. Both LG and Samsung are engaged in this and it could open the door to Chinese rivals like TCL and HiVision. Not because they're much better but because discoveries like these will leave a bad taste in people's mouth whenever they want to buy a new TV.

They need to put a stop to this or they'll start losing market share fast.

Can this spying and tracking be so lucrative that they'll risk alienating their customers over it?

Comment by rickdeckard 4 hours ago

You mean THIS TCL? https://ads.tcl.com/

Or THIS Hisense? https://nexxen.com/acr-data/

They all use Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) and collect profiling data to feed into an Ad service offering.

Samsung started this and is now a leading supplier for targeted advertising on TVs (because old serialized TV doesn't have such an option), this is forcing all the brands to follow and do the same, because:

#A: it creates a revenue stream based on active devices (like Apple/Google has), not just at the time of sales, and

#B: their business partners now demand it (big electronics chains won't sell a TV which will affect their targeted ad promotions)

It would be much more valuable to have proper journalists (sorry) to write an investigative report on this whole Ad-targeting industry, to create pressure not just on some TV-vendors but on all home appliances (including cable-company set-top-boxes, which do exactly the same btw).

The only way out of this is to increase public pressure to the point that a regulation (a LAW!) is drafted and enforced.

Comment by jimt1234 3 hours ago

I just recently learned about ACR. My first thought was to set up an LG TV in the basement and stream non-stop p0rn for 3 months or so. Then see what ads start showing up for me. Like, I wonder if there's a target group called "Creeps addicted to p0rn."

Comment by rickdeckard 2 hours ago

just to clarify: ACR is actually not taking a screenshot, it calculates a fingerprint of the picture and sends it to a server.

The fingerprint is then checked against a database of some common content, to understand whether you're watching some Movie/Series on DVD/BluRay or with an external set-top-box.

Not sure if porn is even fingerprinted in that database, would probably be 100% more fingerprints... /s

Comment by mikestew 4 hours ago

Not because they're much better but because discoveries like these will leave a bad taste in people's mouth whenever they want to buy a new TV.

It ain't just TVs. Now that I've found out that my Hyundai is not only spying on me, but snitching to the insurance company, I might just take South Korea companies off my list for anything.

Comment by rickdeckard 4 hours ago

Also applies to GM: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/08/general-moto...

You know who DOESN'T sell the data to outside companies?

Car-vendors which have large competing in-house financial services arms that use the data themselves (VW, BMW, Ford, Stellantis, Tesla,...)

The issue is not a single company, it's that there is insufficient regulation against this.

Comment by microtonal 3 hours ago

We should draft such a regulation and call it General Data Protection Regulation. My guess is that we'll see a lot of malicious compliance.

Comment by rickdeckard 3 hours ago

Funny enough, in that one region where this regulation exists, no such incidents of user data being sold was discovered so far...

Comment by skullone 4 hours ago

This spying is even more prevelant in Korean cars, too. Really sad, because they can be a decent enough product (no worse than any other cheap car) but they are very anti consumer and burning their reputation.

Comment by rickdeckard 4 hours ago

Also applies to GM: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/08/general-moto...

You know who DOESN'T sell the data to outside companies?

Car-vendors which have large competing in-house financial services arms that use the data themselves (VW, BMW, Ford, Stellantis, Tesla,...)

Comment by silisili 3 hours ago

Oddly enough, historically GM is also easiest to defeat, in just unplugging the OnStar module. No idea on the last couple model years, though.

Comment by stanmancan 4 hours ago

Can you elaborate for a Hyundai owner?

Comment by mikestew 4 hours ago

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/08/hyundai-and-kia-are-sellin...

Comment by mfro 3 hours ago

Surprise, case was voluntarily dismissed. Wonder how much they paid him.

Comment by Keyframe 1 hour ago

If all this is true, I'd also like to see some serious jail time for those guys that thought this was a good idea. Losing market share should be least of their worries.

Comment by HoldOnAMinute 4 hours ago

99.99999999% of consumers will not notice any difference

Comment by WarmWash 1 hour ago

They notice the price, that's for sure. That's why these things are so prevalent, 99.999999% are hyper focused on price above all else.

Comment by daveidol 4 hours ago

Yeah, sadly most people don’t know or don’t care most likely.

Unless it’s in their face causing them friction they will just continue to use it as an appliance.

Comment by qwytw 4 hours ago

I'm sue it's not true, it's probably in the single digits (but they might somewhat influence their friends and family)

Comment by setopt 4 hours ago

Taken literally, you’re claiming that only 80 people on Earth would notice. Maybe a tenth of that if we narrow down what is meant by «consumer». I assume you don’t really believe that?

Comment by billforsternz 1 hour ago

I see 10 9s so I suppose the claim is 9,999,999,999 people out of 10,000,000,000 won't notice so with 8,000,000,000 people on Earth I think it's 0.8 people not 80.

Comment by Antipode 1 hour ago

I think that's a safe assumption

Comment by ozgrakkurt 3 hours ago

> Not because they're much better

they actually are much better if you have a limited budget

Comment by jonplackett 4 hours ago

How is this not a gigantic fine from the EU for some kind of GDPR reason

Comment by rickdeckard 4 hours ago

> How is this not a gigantic fine from the EU for some kind of GDPR reason

The underlying "research" is unfortunately not that clean, but I'd say for two reasons:

1. Because looking at the LG ToS alone, it seems that the devices do MUCH more data-collecting outside Europe

2. GDPR is covering your personal information (WHO you are) and personal identifiable information (data that can be used to infer WHO you are). In a nutshell: If a device (a TV, a phone, a car, a Smart Home device, whatever) collects information to PROFILE you, without collecting data about WHO you are, they are not violating your privacy. The company needs to be VERY careful about not accidentally collecting identifiable information, but as long as this doesn't happen, it's within GDPR.

That said, a proper technical write-up of the issues found, with an investigation by a professional journalist would be very helpful to get things going, put proper pressure where it needs to be and dismantle this Ad network business-model of all those TV-manufacturers (Samsung Ads, LG Ads, TCL Ads, Hisense Ads,...)

Comment by throwaway894345 2 hours ago

> it seems that the devices do MUCH more data-collecting outside Europe

Just a note: GDPR applies globally. Companies can't collect data on Europeans even if they reside on another continent.

Comment by vrganj 2 hours ago

As a European that lived in the US for a while, I enjoyed responding to unsolicited marketing emails with GDPR emails to legal departments.

Comment by qwytw 4 hours ago

Because it's technically opt-in. And AFAIK the the checkbox is more explicit in Europe and they probably do a bit ore to comply with GDPR. US is a free for all mostly when it comes to abusing consumers through contrived and unfair ToS agreements.

Comment by thibaut_barrere 4 hours ago

The opt-in is bollocks. I am a LG owner and quite technical and used to legalese too. This will get them fined in Europe.

Comment by rickdeckard 3 hours ago

The terms of service in Europe [0] are actually very different to those in US [1], I wouldn't be surprised if the behavior within the EU is within EU GDPR regulation.

GDPR "only" covers your personal information (and personal identifiable information) anyway, it doesn't cover data used to profile you (e.g. the time of day the TV and the hours a TV is switched on is technically not personal information)

Either way, case in point: Check this hilarious statement in the US ToS:

"6. I understand and agree that Voice Information may, for the purposes set out above, be transferred to and processed in other countries (including Korea), some of which may not offer the same level of data protection."

Also, this one in the US ToS:

"9. I understand that this Smart Media Product is a household device. If this Smart Media Product will be used by more than one person, I represent that, in addition to agreeing to this Agreement, that I have obtained consent from all other members of my household whose information may be collected through this Smart Media Product and am providing consent on their behalf."

vs. Europe ToS:

"I understand and agree that Voice Information is generally handled by LGE in such a way that members of your household are not identified or identifiable from that information. Please be aware that this means that if several members of your household use Smart Media Product services we may not be able to distinguish you and your personal information from members of your household and those members may be able to see information (including some personal information) you have generated through use of Smart Media Product Services."

[0] https://gb.lgappstv.com/main/terms#tabContentTerms6

[1] https://us.lgappstv.com/main/terms#tabContentTerms6

Comment by ishtanbul 4 hours ago

in the US. My LG TV has put up a giant TOS agreement thing and I can't use any apps until I agree. So I unplugged the ethernet cable and bought an Apple TV. problem solved?

Comment by drnick1 2 hours ago

> So I unplugged the ethernet cable and bought an Apple TV.

What makes you think the Apple TV is any better? I'd wager that Apple collects just as much telemetry.

Comment by sgerenser 36 minutes ago

No, I don’t think they do. That’s why AppleTV is so expensive compared to a Roku.

Comment by microtonal 3 hours ago

For now. I wouldn't surprised that if enough people start doing this, they'll just put a cheap cellular modem in the TV. Or find open access points. Or make a deal with Amazon and others to exfiltrate information via a smart home speaker/assistant.

Technical solutions only go so far, at some point you have to put in place a regulatory framework that requires consent. The divergences between US-EU privacy policies, configuration screens, etc. show that the GDPR is slowly starting to do its work.

Comment by rickdeckard 3 hours ago

What LG (and Samsung and all the other electronics companies) are doing is profiling the user to sell targeted advertising. This is technically not personal information, and that's a grey area for those companies when communicating to the public.

People here generally don't like to hear that, but Apple is doing the very same. There's even a study-paper on how they do this without collecting personal information [0]

So when a company yells out how it's not collecting your "personal information", the statement actually doesn't cover what has been discovered here from all I can decipher from this "research"

[0] https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/learning-with-pri...

Comment by microtonal 3 hours ago

I am not sure about other products. But I have noticed that Samsung phones started putting most toggles off by default (toggles for collecting data). So the GDPR slowly seems to have some effect on different products.

(A few years ago, you definitely had to opt out of data collection.)

Comment by Jonnax 5 hours ago

Is there anyone who has done a technical write up and investigation into the firmwares?

Like reverse engineering how the software on the TVs work.

Also what third parties are involved.

I have a feeling there must be some third party vendor selling the same toolkit that manufacturers use.

Would be nice to figure out if it's possible to send junk data to the endpoints.

Comment by AaronM 4 hours ago

Pihole has worked reasonably well upto this point, however the web is catching up, lots of sites that use Admiral refuse to work with piehole running.

I suspect it will only be a matter of time before hardware manufacturers wise up and prevent you from using the TV if you block their ad network traffic.

Comment by no_wizard 3 hours ago

The smart answer would be to figure out the expected payload of the devices and send a dummy one that tricks the TV into thinking its phoned home, I suspect.

Comment by johannes1234321 4 hours ago

LG for large parts of the product series use WebOS, which was the OS of the shortlived attempt by Palm to compete in the smartphone market with iPhone, which then changed hands a bit till landing there.

Comment by bahmboo 4 hours ago

Me too. I was hoping for a better write up than a pay walled verge article. Yes I'm being lazy but this is hn and I like technical break downs and not just moral panic. I own an older lg tv and I'm not dismissing the societal issues.

Comment by d0100 4 hours ago

Gamers Nexus has a 2h video doing reverse engineering and a lot of tests

Comment by jabroni_salad 2 hours ago

I checked their site and it looks like a write-up hasnt appeared yet. They did a good one for their GPU black market story so hopefully they didnt just forget :)

Comment by Insanity 3 hours ago

I'm guessing that's at least (partly) the impetus for why we're seeing these articles now.

Comment by Confiks 3 hours ago

> Is there anyone who has done a technical write up and investigation into the firmwares?

I extracted the firmware and filesystem of a webOS 3.5 and webOS 24 TV previously so I could remove the spying bits and get an internet connected TV back. I asked Claude Opus 5 to do some analysis on the ACR implementation yesterday. I haven't had time to check it myself, so it might give some insight but take it with a grain of salt. Also because I'm not entirely sure I extracted the complete filesystem for the webOS 24 TV.

See the documents temporarily hosted here [1][2][3]. You can find the Markdown originals in the HTML source. The Markdown has also been pasted here [4] (although the forum software has sometimes inserted a lot of tildes).

LG uses the "Alphonso SDK" for ACR, a company which it seems to have a majority stake in [5].

WebOS itself is actually pretty neat once you get root on the device. It still has open source releases, uses a well documented service bus, the UI apps are unobfuscated Javascript. It's a genuine Linux TV if only LG allowed you to get root and would not install spyware by default. Secure boot unfortunately does prevent you from messing with the boot process.

If you want to know anything specific, let me know. There's also a pretty active Discord (ugh) community here [6].

Personally, I'm most interested whether LG and other device manufacturers are getting informed consent for ACR in European markets, and what the consent screen looks like. I doubt that many consumers actually know what they're consenting to, which might be a GDPR violation.

[1] https://scriptbase.org/lg-tv/webos-24.html

[2] https://scriptbase.org/lg-tv/webos-3.5.html

[3] https://scriptbase.org/lg-tv/comparison.html

[4] https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_message/86090672#8...

[5] https://www.adexchanger.com/tv-2/lg-grabs-a-majority-stake-i...

[6] https://openlgtv.github.io/

Comment by IshKebab 3 hours ago

Ohhh the WiFi scanning is for geolocation, of course. I was wondering why they'd do that.

Comment by Confiks 3 hours ago

It even goes both ways: you can geolocate the user, and you can sell the BSSID data for future lookups. Not sure how valuable that still is in 2026 now that every mobile phone is adding that to the Goople databases, but it was in the past.

Comment by dathery 4 hours ago

> In July this year, the channel flagged that some LG monitors were automatically installing an app that collected device data and ran pop-up ads for LG’s other apps and even McAfee antivirus. The public pressure from that video prompted an intervention from Microsoft, and ultimately led to LG disabling the pop-up ads.

Can anyone explain why Windows even makes this possible? I had to fight against Windows installing Alienware command center nonsense automatically because I have a "gaming" Dell OLED. Windows automatically fetched and installed it just from plugging in the monitor, adding a new system tray icon and persistent daemon with these kinds of annoying pop-ups and probably a bunch of security vulnerabilities.

It's completely incomprehensible to me. The monitor works great without it, on both Windows and Linux! I left a negative review on an otherwise good monitor as a result, but Microsoft shouldn't even be entertaining this crap.

Comment by tredre3 4 hours ago

> Can anyone explain why Windows even makes this possible?

Because, as much as we nerds might hate it, it's convenient to a large number of people. They plug in their device and the companion software to fully use all its features just installs itself. They don't have to go to some obscure URL and then locate their exact product. Even in the case you've described, the software likely enables some features of your monitor that aren't accessible otherwise. You don't care about them, but someone might.

Comment by RHSeeger 4 hours ago

But it should require asking the user if the installation is acceptable.

Comment by yonatan8070 4 hours ago

"But that would confuse users with a complicated interface"

- some product manager, who was thinking of additional ad revenue while trying to sound like not an asshole.

Comment by kyralis 4 hours ago

The intention is to allow for automatic installation of software that is actually needed for the function of the peripheral - think proprietary cameras or non-standard printers/IO/etc. It's not a bad goal, but it leads to manufacturers abusing it, unsurprisingly, for things that are not, in fact, necessary.

Comment by deltoidmaximus 3 hours ago

I largely don't use Windows anymore, but there is an option buried under Advanced System Settings/Properties under the hardware tab called Device Installation Settings. There you can turn this off (marked 'not recommended').

I know about this because I have a Windows 10 VM that was automatically installing an old broken Radeon driver through it that would just leave me with a black screen on boot. I also learned that if Microsoft got the scent of the driver and started downloading it turning this option off didn't stop that particular driver from continuing to download and hosing the install. Since I lacked a snapshot before this I had to reinstall the the entire OS in the VM with the GPU not passed through and then turn the option off first.

Comment by WarmWash 1 hour ago

I hope I can soon get fable or the like to execute

"Please scan my computer for spyware, and if found, either remove it or find an exploit to permanently cripple the spying part of it"

Comment by ratelimitsteve 4 hours ago

this feature probably began life as "automatically download necessary drivers to make installation easier" and then after some massaging the definition of "necessary drivers" expanded to "anything the manufacturer would like to see running on this PC regardless of how necessary it is for the device to function".

Comment by debugnik 3 hours ago

Windows downloads the driver first, then the driver itself uses an AddSoftware directive to install a companion app. Which is ok when the app is a GPU control panel or similar, but here it was clearly abused.

Comment by WarmWash 1 hour ago

When your job performance is tied to the number of new users you get onboard...

Comment by designerarvid 4 hours ago

Is there some way to jailbreak your tv and run som open source os on it? Or something like that?

Not exactly sure what I’m after, but the problem is acute and widely prevalent, so there has to be some solution.

Comment by cassianoleal 4 hours ago

You can root most LG TVs but I'm not sure an alternative firmware exists or if it's even feasible.

https://cani.rootmy.tv/

Comment by urbandw311er 54 minutes ago

Ahh that’s great - been waiting for something that works with my firmware for my LG TV (a C1). Any idea, once rooted, what commands I can run just to disable all the ads, bloatware and spyware?

Comment by cassianoleal 9 minutes ago

No idea unfortunately. I had good success at blocking ads just via DNS (Pi-Hole or equivalent), but I have no idea if it does anything for the spyware.

Comment by yonatan8070 4 hours ago

Probably just never give it internet access and plug in an HTPC with some form of Linux (I've heard KDE's Plasma Bigscreen is better than ever, though I haven't tried it myself)

Comment by InvertedRhodium 1 hour ago

I do this, but increasingly modern TVs complain about not being connected to the internet in general. Usually once every day or two I get a pop up on my Samsung 90F complaining that network access of required for some feature that seems to run on a timer.

Comment by drnick1 2 hours ago

This is the right solution. I would be tempted to go one step further: disassemble the TV and remove the WiFi card, antennas, and other unneeded hardware such as microphones or cameras. Same treatment as modern cars with cellular modems.

Comment by designerarvid 1 hour ago

Sure, but that’s not a feasible solution for end-users, or people who hasn’t got all the free time

Comment by Ajedi32 4 hours ago

My understanding is that this is difficult due to DRMd content refusing to work with Free operating systems.

Because yes, this nonsense would never fly in a world where Software Freedom enabled a competitive market for TV operating systems.

Comment by sroussey 5 hours ago

All smart TVs should be disconnected from the internet. Use an AppleTV or similar.

Comment by dspillett 5 hours ago

Some TVs will present a popover warning that they have not been able to check for updates for a while, after being disconnected for some time, and you can't close that without letting them connect (even if you are just using the screen to display content from an HDMI slot rather than using any of the other TV features).

Comment by mszcz 4 hours ago

Which ones? I'd be happy to know the brands.

Comment by bradleyankrom 4 hours ago

FWIW, I've never seen that come up on the five or six TCLs that I've owned over the last decade. I have AppleTVs connected to all of them and never connect them to the internet. So far, so good.

Comment by dspillett 2 hours ago

I don't recall off the top of my head. It was covered in one of Louis Rossmann's rants so you might find information on the consumer rights wiki he talks about.

Comment by richjdsmith 4 hours ago

Samsung TVs certainly do. A massive PITA.

Comment by mszcz 4 hours ago

Good to know. I don't buy Samsung anymore anyway. I have two CRG9s and they're already showing same problems after a couple of years. Had a midrange phone from them some years ago - started dying 6mo in (battery, restarts, slowness).

Comment by 2 hours ago

Comment by walrus01 4 hours ago

Do they still do it if they've never been connected to a network? So they don't even know what date/time it is relative to their current updates/firmware? Do they display the warning based on a cumulative power-on timer only (much as good quality computer displays have somewhere in their menus buried a figure showing their total cumulative power on hours).

Comment by tbomb 3 hours ago

I wonder if this is firmware related. I've had a Samsung TV for a few years now that I've never connected to the internet, so my firmware is likely very out of date, and it has never displayed a message like that.

Comment by sidewndr46 3 hours ago

A family has a soundbar that just turns off after a while if it isn't connected to the internet.

Comment by Cpoll 5 hours ago

Not sufficient, given reports of TVs and other devices automatically creating mesh networks. Your disconnected TV could talk to your neighbour's connected one. If anything, I wonder why LG isn't already doing it.

Edit: Getting pushback asking for evidence (fair). Most recently I read it in an HN thread a few years back. I thought it was a TCL TV, but I can't find it anymore. It wasn't Samsung's WiFi Direct, which I don't think was ever on by default.

Lacking better evidence, I'll admit I'm probably wrong and no TV has been documented doing this (yet).

Comment by deadbunny 5 hours ago

Could you link to these reports, the ones with evidence?

Comment by Lammy 5 hours ago

If something is technically possible, one should act as though it is already happening and hope to be wrong rather than refusing to consider the issue until sufficient “proof” is given, by which it will be too late. Doubly so when advertisers are involved, who as a group are economically-incentivized to not care about consent.

Comment by deadbunny 4 hours ago

This would be trivial to test and detect. Just like every claim that TVs will connect to open WiFi networks if you don't connect them to a network. Yet after years of these claims and being extremely trivial to test not a single shred of evidence has ever been provided.

Comment by cassianoleal 4 hours ago

How would you test this?

Comment by DaSHacka 1 hour ago

How do you think? By broadcasting an open WiFi network and seeing if it connects and requests a DHCP Lease.

Comment by 4 hours ago

Comment by deadbunny 4 hours ago

If they form a mesh and route traffic via one TV that acts as an exit node you can check the packet TTLs.

Comment by wtallis 3 hours ago

Isn't messing with TTLs a pretty obvious thing to do when communicating covertly? And wouldn't that kind of packet inspection only catch cases of TVs literally acting as packet-level routers, but not catch application-layer shenanigans like aggregating statistics in the exit node so that all the data going over your own network appears to be originating from the same device?

It's still implausible, but thoroughly verifying that your TV isn't spying on you isn't trivial.

Comment by structural 3 hours ago

There's no requirement that the mesh be IP-based or function as a layer-3 router...

Even if it were IP-bsaed, it would be extremely straightforward for one box to send a UDP message to another, and receive and retransmit at the application layer. No TTL nonsense, No multiple IPs showing up communicating upstream.

Comment by cassianoleal 2 hours ago

But if my TV is doing this, then by definition it's not acting as an exit node so how do I test it?

Comment by DaSHacka 1 hour ago

Put a WiFi NIC in monitor mode and see if the TV is connected to another AP based on the 802.11 packets.

Or if this theoretical implementation by a manufacturer is using a custom protocol/frequency (very unlikely for a variety of reasons), you'd begin by probing with an SDR.

Comment by cassianoleal 1 hour ago

Which part of that qualifies as trivial?

Comment by DaSHacka 59 minutes ago

I only semi-agree with GP; it's trivial for someone who works in Tech to pull it off, but that's really all you need to blow the lid on the whole operation given manufacturers would likely have implemented the same behavior across all TVs of the same model/product segment.

Comment by nickff 5 hours ago

This seems paranoid. There are many things which are technically possible, but there is no evidence of some super-advertiser doing. It's not even clear to me that much of the 'fingerprinting' (past basic re-targeting) actually works.

Comment by privong 4 hours ago

> This seems paranoid. There are many things which are technically possible, but [...]

Isn't this what people said pre-Snowden? Not that NSA spying is the same as corporate "surveillance capitalism", but if companies can make more money off it and the technology exists, it seems prudent to assume companies are trying it.

Comment by nickff 4 hours ago

There was evidence of the NSA intercepting international communications before Snowden, but for some reason that didn't seem to make much of a lasting impression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

It's also significant to note that while the government is quite bad at keeping 'problematic' behavior secret, companies are much worse at it.

Comment by privong 4 hours ago

Analogously, there's evidence that companies will make extensive use of available techniques (browser fingerprinting, cookies, etc.) to track and surveil users without their knowledge and often against their will. The exposure of that arguably also hasn't triggered an effective backlash against those companies. So, as with the pre-Snowden evidence for domestic communication interception by the NSA, I think there's ample evidence of the willingness of companies to exploit whatever technologies they can in order to surveil users.

Comment by structural 3 hours ago

The way this is typically handled is through compartmentalization, where no one working has enough of a global view to be able to claim that the behaviour is problematic.

There's a lot that's problematic that we suspect that is going on but don't have firm proof, because the organization actually is pretty good at keeping it secret enough. There's some exceptions where things do get leaked/revealed, but how would you know if this was 99% of wrongdoing, or 0.99% of it?

Comment by hammock 2 hours ago

Here is maybe what he was remembering from HN:

> Our Samsung fridge’s manual says it’ll automatically and silently mesh network with any Samsung TVs in range, use AI and hidden cameras to recognize what’s in the fridge and when we use it, then have the TV inject targeted ads into programming based on its findings. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45742208

Comment by Arainach 5 hours ago

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/28/23659191/amazon-sidewalk-...

Comment by azernik 5 hours ago

That is an article saying that mesh networking frameworks exist. It does not support the GP claim of smart TVs creating mesh networks across different owners.

Comment by coldpie 5 hours ago

Unless you have evidence, please stop spreading this rumor.

Comment by josefresco 3 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA

Comment by coldpie 2 hours ago

Please point me to the timestamp in that video that supports this claim:

> reports of TVs and other devices automatically creating mesh networks. Your disconnected TV could talk to your neighbour's connected one.

Comment by ginko 1 hour ago

Sorry but it's up to the vendors to prove that abuse is technologically impossible (through open source software and cryptography). Closed source software should always be assumed to do the worst thing possible.

Comment by coldpie 18 minutes ago

I'm afraid I can't help you with your paranoia. TVs just simply don't do this. It would be trivial to prove if they did. There's plenty here to be upset about without making up stupid conspiracy theories.

Comment by ginko 16 minutes ago

Why do you defend LG?

Comment by coldpie 14 minutes ago

I'm not.

Comment by tshaddox 5 hours ago

I’ve heard rumors of that, and also of TVs shipping with cellular modems with which to phone home. I don’t know if either have been confirmed, but it would be ridiculous for such a thing to be legal.

Comment by coldpie 5 hours ago

It's a longstanding, and obviously false, rumor. It would be trivial to prove that these things connect to open wifi networks to phone home, but no one has ever proved that they do that, because they don't actually do that. It would be a little harder, but still very easy, to prove that they connect to cell networks, but no one has proved that they do that either, because they don't actually do that either.

Keeping them disconnected from wifi is sufficient.

Comment by nickff 5 hours ago

Cellular modems seem unlikely, because both they and the service plan they'd need are too expensive to be justified by any benefit to the manufacturer.

Comment by bluGill 3 hours ago

Cell plans are very cheap when you are a company looking for low bandwidth off-peak service for a lot of devices. As individuals you can't get those deals, but companies can.

I don't know if TVs have a cell modem, but it isn't unreasonable to say they could.

As a different poster mentioned, the FCC needs to know about this though and so it will be documented.

Comment by TheJCDenton 4 hours ago

Not so far fetched when your advertising revenue is in the tens of millions of dollars.

They just need this revenue by tv to be higher than the price of the mobile plan per tv. For a few Gb per month it may be relevant in the not so distant future.

Comment by tshaddox 2 hours ago

I doubt the modem would cost more than $5 at scale. No idea what sort of off peak data deals you could get at scale but I have to imagine it’s close to being feasible.

Comment by AlexandrB 4 hours ago

Yes. Considering 90%+ of users will just connect their TV to their WiFi, shipping a cell modem with every TV to catch that last 10% seems like bad ROI.

I could however see this happening in the future in response to regulation. For example some "think of the children" rule that makes TV makers responsible for blocking mature content.

Comment by drdexebtjl 3 hours ago

Phones already have modems that do Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth in a single chip.

It may at some point no longer be economical to manufacture a Wi-Fi only modem.

Comment by semiquaver 4 hours ago

It’s perfectly legal to put a cellular modem in a TV, but not without disclosing that to the FCC and on product labels. This and the mesh network thing for TVs are (currently) a conspiracy theory, which sucks because it muddies the waters in advance of it inevitably happening in reality.

Comment by nullfield 4 hours ago

See: Amazon Sidewalk

Comment by Jonnax 5 hours ago

Which manufacturers and which TVs?

Otherwise it's just some 10+ year old rumour

Comment by drdexebtjl 3 hours ago

“or similar” like what?

Streaming sticks suffer from the exact same problem.

The Apple TV is the only device I know of in this space whose business model is not selling your data to the highest bidder.

Comment by slowin 2 hours ago

Much better than an Apple TV is a Linux machine running Kodi.

Comment by squeegmeister 2 hours ago

Curious how a PS5 measures on the spyware scale

Comment by krtkush 5 hours ago

I have connected it to my network and then blocked it off the internet via Pi-hole. That way, I hope, it'll not try to scan for other open networks.

Comment by dogcow 5 hours ago

That's not really sufficient. It could still phone home if it falls back to IP addresses. You should be blocking it at the firewall level, not just with DNS.

But me personally, I wouldn't ever connect any of these devices to my network.

Comment by krtkush 4 hours ago

The only reason it is on my network is that I need it for home automation (via home bridge). I'll have to see what else I can do.

Comment by chorizo 3 hours ago

Firewall rule that prevents the tv from accessing the internet (by mac address if using dhcp, or set a static ip for the tv). Or stick it in separate quarantined IoT subnet with your devices.

Comment by Nas808 3 hours ago

Some of these devices also now use DoH to bypass any DNS-level filtering.

Comment by orev 5 hours ago

It’s still scanning (or at least listening to) all the other devices on your local network, like your phones, PCs, etc. It collects an inventory and if it ever happens to get Internet access, uploads that data.

Comment by phraun 2 hours ago

That's why you put IoT crap into an isolated vlan with its own ssid, enforce device isolation for that ssid across all WAPs, and enforce isolation on the vlan level with your switches to cover any hardwired devices.

Comment by _fat_santa 2 hours ago

Part of the issue is many TV's these days are essentially bricked until you connect them to the internet to "activate".

Comment by indymike 4 hours ago

Just disable wifi. Occasionally factory reset, hook up to wifi for firmware update, then disable again.

Comment by thesuitonym 3 hours ago

Why do you need to update the firmware at all?

Comment by ihsw 5 hours ago

All smart TVs should not come with WiFi or Ethernet controllers.

Comment by samus 4 hours ago

Then they are not smart TVs anymore. More precisely, they couldn't offer the features one expected from such. Think about a smartphone without internet connection.

Comment by ralferoo 5 hours ago

https://archive.is/zmCOd

Comment by jareklupinski 47 minutes ago

this basically vindicates everyone who has a streaming account _and_ feels like everything they say "suddenly pops up in an online ad the next day"

Comment by dnw 3 hours ago

I need a Brother for TVs.

Comment by 2 hours ago

Comment by bigbuppo 2 hours ago

These weaponized TVs are a threat to both national and international security.

Comment by ksajadi 2 hours ago

To me this is where the EU MEPs should place their privacy concerns. Unless it ends up being another consent pop up on TVs.

Comment by necovek 2 hours ago

I'll just throw this out here: https://www.webosbrew.org/rooting/

I believe I did have to connect it to the network to get it to some web page or other, but after that I had full control of it.

My LG TV is a bit older, though (2021 or so).

Comment by mtalantikite 2 hours ago

As someone who has never owned a TV and doesn’t know about this space, are there any TV manufacturers that are just a basic screen anymore?

Comment by alistairSH 2 hours ago

Like the sibling said, you have to look at large monitors or commercial displays. But both tend to cost a lot more for similar features (due to not having ad revenue attached, I assume) or have other compromises.

The best options seems to be finding a TV that is reported to be usable without any sign-in and without internet connection. The number of models that fall in that category is getting smaller over time.

Comment by maxk42 2 hours ago

Westinghouse makes a line of "non-smart" TVs. A few obscure Chinese brands do also.

Comment by tomxor 2 hours ago

Not really (I've looked pretty thoroughly), but I've been looking into large format gaming monitors like the 48" Asus OLED PG48UQ [0] which are essentially dumb TV panels.

I haven't finished researching yet but happy to discover this category of monitor is a thing now, with close enough to the latest display tech at reasonable prices. I've never owned a TV either and I keep getting stuck trying to buy one because they are all so horrible.

These are essentially huge TV panels, with basic TV features like a remote control for the OSD. I guess because it's what gamers want... A TV scale monitor for use as a TV without all the smart TV bits which ruin games. There are also a bunch of "Smart Monitors" in this category to be ware, including from LG. The work is in distinguishing the true large format dumb monitors from the smart TVs in disguise.

[0] https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/asus-rog-swift-oled-p...

Comment by 1 hour ago

Comment by washadjeffmad 2 hours ago

We shouldn't need to, but the wifi PCB module in LG OLED TVs is typically attached by a ribbon cable that can be easily disconnected.

The Magic Remote can also be replaced with dumb IR model without a microphone.

Comment by jzer0cool 4 hours ago

Hardware switches would be plus in modern era. Not just for mics.

Comment by ortusdux 5 hours ago

I've said it before, but I wish a somewhat trustworthy organization would create a 'DUMB' certification - "Don't Upload My Bits".

Comment by throwup238 2 hours ago

Called it!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43520903

Comment by 1 hour ago

Comment by tomsi 1 hour ago

Just unplugged mine and set up a fire stick

Comment by apt-apt-apt-apt 4 hours ago

What's the incentive for these manufacturers to do this?

Are they getting paid for the data (e.g. we'll pay you $100M to install spyware), or are they trying to be an ad platform, or is it simply analytics gone out of control?

Comment by josefresco 3 hours ago

Because they make higher margins on their ad business, details here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IFVTcM28KA

Comment by apt-apt-apt-apt 2 hours ago

It showed VIZIO revenue numbers ($1B hardware sales at -0.8% profit margin, ~$500M ad revenue at 61% profit margin).

Based on that, it seems to me that TVs are a one-time-sale commodity with low margins, while ads are continual revenue generators with high margins. This makes the incentive extremely clear.

Comment by autoexec 4 hours ago

They get to make money off of you for the rest of your life. They'll sell ads to companies, and they'll sell your data to anyone willing to pay enough for it.

Comment by apt-apt-apt-apt 3 hours ago

Unfortunately, considering that 80-90% of people simply don't think or care about this, I can see the incentive.

Comment by autoexec 2 hours ago

I think that people just don't know about it. When directly confronted with it they react pretty strongly. Companies have done a very good job of hiding what they're doing from the public. They know people aren't going to read their 15,000 word EULA written in deceptively phrased legalese, and they wouldn't understand it if they read it anyway. Most Americans can't even read at a 6th grade level. People just have no idea what's being collected or what's being done with their data.

If really you want to see how people feel about being surveilled there's plenty of videos online showing people freaking out at someone just taking photos/video in public. A ton of people are absolutely convinced that the law protects them from being recorded in public. They're not going to imagine that a "respectable" corporation would be allowed to do it to them in their own homes.

Comment by jboggan 3 hours ago

Reminder that smart TV ids are part of California's DROP platform, and that you can (and should) request that all registered data brokers delete data associated with your television.

Comment by soupbowl 4 hours ago

Are the WiFi cards on these TV like laptops or soldered on. I wonder if you can atleast disconnect the antenna or remove WiFi chip.

Comment by mikestew 4 hours ago

Why? Just don't connect it to the internet.

(Yeah, yeah, when someone actually demos a TV seeking open WiFi APs, then we'll talk. And anyone bringing up ETH over HDMI gets a spankin'.)

Comment by jghn 3 hours ago

There are reports, including in this thread, of TV models that require a login to proceed during initial setup

Comment by mikestew 2 hours ago

That's good that they let you know right out of the box that the TV needs to go back in the box, and back to the store. I mean, c'mon, OP is willing to desolder a board on their brand-new TV, boxing it back up and buying something else shouldn't be much of a barrier.

Comment by hinkley 3 hours ago

XFinity has some bullshit where your router provides an AP for other XFinity members.

My understanding is that it uses bandwidth you aren't paying for to carry this signal rather than using up what you paid for, but still it's been there for something going on ten years.

Comment by mikestew 2 hours ago

So don't give it your Xfinity creds? My understanding is that Xfinity doesn't let just anyone connect to that network.

Comment by hinkley 28 minutes ago

You lack imagination, which is a liability in this field.

Not your creds. Nothing stops the manufacturer from making a deal to get an account from XFinity and shipping the creds on the TV. Then they can exfiltrate data from anyone who has an Xfinity repeater anywhere in broadcast range.

Comment by jghn 3 hours ago

That was the moment I bought my own cable modem instead of using theirs.

Comment by hinkley 2 hours ago

I was about to switch carriers anyway, that was the kick in the butt I needed to make the call and schedule an appointment.

Some parts of these organizations are aware that some of their rent comes from inertia. Other parts don't realize that they are providing the impulse to overcome that inertia.

Comment by alistairSH 2 hours ago

IIRC, BT does this in the UK (via the EE Wifi program).

Comment by alistairSH 2 hours ago

I'm confused, the article claims the TVs are uploading data when offline? That's is literally impossible. Are they using a different definition of offline from normal people?

Comment by shae 2 hours ago

The original article from Gamers Nexus says they upload saved audio when an internet connection is restored.

Comment by extralongdivisi 2 hours ago

More reason to stick with my monitor and Kodi.

Comment by angelomichel_nl 3 hours ago

Posted on a website where you can't read without subscribing... just like the video man! LG might be after money, but theverge is just the same lol.

Comment by squeegmeister 2 hours ago

Paywalls are how you run a business without ads/spyware. These are not remotely the same

Comment by CMay 3 hours ago

Does this mean that TVs can never be recycled or resold now, adding to the garbage problem? All you have to do is sell the TV to someone who does eventually connect it to the internet and it will upload all the data it acquired while the previous owner had it?

Comment by 3 hours ago

Comment by ebbi 31 minutes ago

I'm in the market for a good TV to pair with my PS5 Pro for GTA6.

What brand does not do scummy things like this, or that I can easily avoid by not requiring me to download an app to set up?

Comment by system2 3 hours ago

This is the reason why I allow certain mac addresses to communicate outside of my house. SonicWall makes it easy.

Comment by thesuitonym 3 hours ago

> SonicWall makes it easy.

This might be the first time I've ever seen anyone say something even slightly positive about SonicWall.

Comment by happyopossum 3 hours ago

These TVs will connect to any open wifi and upload your data - your firewall only works for your network.

Comment by slackfan 5 hours ago

But I was reliably informed this never happens! (Reasons I own an NEC commercial display instead)

Comment by bradfa 4 hours ago

Which NEC commercial display do you have? How do you like it for normal TV duties? What tradeoffs were you willing to make when you bought it compared to the features which were available in consumer-focused "smart" TVs?

Comment by slackfan 3 hours ago

MultiSync P495, with the additional daughter card for the RPI CM4.

As far as regular TV duties, the CM4 running libreELEC does everything I need and then some. The HDMI-CEC was flaky at one point, but from my research on it regular consumer TVs suffer from the same problem. If anything I'm more limited by the CM4's output, less the display itself.

Tradeoffs: I wanted to control my stack with minimal cabling pretty much everything else be damned, and this was a nice integrated solution and a excellent alternative to just buying a 43" dell monitor to hang on my wall. There are probably some image processing "features" that videophiles can comment on, but I've been used to literal decades of LCDs at this point, so an IPS display is going to be just fine(tm). Display lag is a bit higher than I would like for retro video games on it, but that's more an overall LCD problem, less a specific display issue.

In functionality it's much closer to a computer monitor than it is to a TV. The menus are obtuse, brutalist even, but if you ever had to work in IT and set up a conference room display you will feel right at home.

It's also a heavy pig compared to consumer televisions, right on the edge of what my mount is able to hold, and not really great to wrangle in a position by your lonesome, but not impossible either.

As for video: It's more than fine. Maybe the pixels are bigger than my macbook's screen, but at 6+ft viewing distance with my eyesight, I can't tell.

Comment by hackeraccount 4 hours ago

Ah NEC. There's a name I haven't heard in a long time. I used to have an NEC monitor.

Comment by slackfan 3 hours ago

They're usually sold as Sharp in the states, but the model numbers are the same, etc. As an old fogey of a nerd it's neat to have a NEC-branded remote/screen when I sit down to watch a movie.

Comment by Jonnax 5 hours ago

By who? Manufacturers have been public about selling viewing data and put it in their user agreements.

Comment by sgerenser 4 hours ago

Are you confused between TVs selling your viewing habits using automated content recognition (which they all do and is well documented), vs TVs finding nefarious ways to still upload that data even after disabling network access? Because the latter is conspiracy theories and there's no evidence of it happening (and it would be trivial to verify if it was).

Comment by slackfan 3 hours ago

Except in the article that is literally parent of this discussion thread? Did you even RTFA?

Comment by sgerenser 47 minutes ago

It just says it stores it to upload later if/when its connected, not that it uses a 5G connection or connects to random open Wifi networks to upload it even if you never connected it to your own network. Did you read it?

Comment by Cort3z 4 hours ago

Ohh my this website is terrible on mobile

Comment by BrandoElFollito 2 hours ago

I doubt they are doing this in the EU. One GDPR request and they would be in a lot of trouble.

Comment by 3 hours ago

Comment by ChrisArchitect 5 hours ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49592375

Comment by macintux 4 hours ago

Several discussions this week, some merged, these not.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605424

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605356

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49573427

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49575176

Comment by ChrisArchitect 47 minutes ago

> (Normally we'd merge this one thither...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49616414

Comment by ChrisArchitect 3 hours ago

a number of those are Related yes, and/or the original submission that didn't get much discussion, so second submission was it. And this one is a dupe, referencing the source. Same discussion.

Comment by hermitdev 4 hours ago

I don't mean to be dismissive, but isn't this old news? Hasn't it been the case that _all_ "smart" TVs have been spying on users since they came out? I've personally operated as if they are: my TV is not connected to the internet. At least, not through my internet connection. It's not on my wifi, nor is it connected to my LAN.

Comment by Cort3z 4 hours ago

This is straight up dystopian level spying. Streaming microphone inputs all the time, knowing everything that is displayed on the screens via object recognition and stuff. Scraping your local network. If I’m not mistaken there is the possibility for the tv to connect to public/open networks to send this stuff without you knowing. Magically syncing with your phone. It’s truly terrible, and a class action is all but guaranteed to come. Gamers nexus has a great video on this.

Comment by coldpie 20 minutes ago

> If I’m not mistaken there is the possibility for the tv to connect to public/open networks to send this stuff without you knowing.

No, there is no evidence that any TV has ever done this. Please stop spreading this rumor.

Comment by ranger_danger 2 hours ago

This is a known feature that is not hidden which is not automatically turned on by default.

You must set your TV to a different standby mode and enable LG voice control.

When you do this, it very plainly tells you that it can listen with the screen off so you can control the TV with voice.

Failure of User Awareness, not some nefarious spyware.

Comment by JohnTHaller 4 hours ago

We knew they were reporting back our watching habits of the built-in stuff. Then we learned they were doing video capture on HDMI ports to report back on what we watched on external sources (Xbox, Apple TV, etc). Then we learned that they did botnet-like stuff in the background even when they were switched off.

NOW we're learning that they're spying with their internal microphone when switched off.

Comment by CMay 2 hours ago

A real problem is that you might not even need to give these internet access. If your neighbor gives their TV internet access and it can establish a mesh connection then it might be able to exfiltrate data that way. I don't know of any TVs that do this, but it's always been a possibility.

Another possibility is even if you don't give it access to your wifi, if you eventually give your TV away or sell it, the new user could connect it to wifi and if it has any persistent storage then it could upload all of its stored data about you at that point.

Companies that do this need to end their entire brand, because they're just helping the CCP.

Comment by coldpie 19 minutes ago

> A real problem is that you might not even need to give these internet access. If your neighbor gives their TV internet access and it can establish a mesh connection then it might be able to exfiltrate data that way.

No TV has ever been shown to do this. Please stop spreading this rumor.