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Comment by hn_submit | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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."

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

Watch Netflix Cuties on loop? Since it's Netflix it's probably in the database, yet the internet believes it's legalized child porn. I wouldn't know of course.

That makes me wonder: If someone's ACR-enabled TV shows a lot of CSAM, are the cops gonna come kick down their door?

No, as the point was already made, illegal CSAM isn't in the ACR database.

There are dozens of TV manufacturers in China and the competition is intense. I'm hoping that one manufacturer will come up with the USP to make a TV that doesn't spy on you, doesn't show ads and uses secure software like a microkernel operating system.

Oh and a switching power supply that doesn't fail after two years.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Can you elaborate for a Hyundai owner?

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

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

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,...)

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

99.99999999% of consumers will not notice any difference

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.

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

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?

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.

I think that's a safe assumption

Then you're a hopeless cynic.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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...

> 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.

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

Apple has little incentives to do that, though? They make money from selling hardware and are able to charge a premium (more than they could making by stealing and selling private user information) because they have a reputation. It would be very unwise to compromise that for pennies.

LG and other consumer electronics manufacturers have tiny margins compared to Apple so that extra percent or two they can make from stuff like this is pretty big for them.

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.

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

> 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,...)

> 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.

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

GDPR claims to apply globally, in the same way Windows believes it owns the whole computer, but I'm actually running it in a VM. The actual boundary of GDPR is the intersection of where it says it applies (everyone in Europe and European residents everywhere), where it can be enforced (in Europe, mostly, against European business entities), and what judges will actually rule on (probably not Europeans overseas who misrepresent themselves as locals)

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.)

> Not because they're much better

they actually are much better if you have a limited budget

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