alt Hacker NewsI didn't realize my LG TV was spying on me until I turned off Live Plus
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My rule for modern TVs: 1. Never connect the TV panel itself to the internet. Keep it air-gapped. Treat it solely as a dumb monitor.
2. Use an Apple TV for the "smart" features.
3. Avoid Fire TV, Chromecast, or Roku.
The logic is simple, Google (Chromecast) and Amazon (Fire TV) operate on the same business model as the TV manufacturers subsidized hardware in exchange for user data and ad inventory. Apple is the only mainstream option where the hardware cost covers the experience, rather than your viewing habits subsidizing the device.
[Copied my comment from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268844#46271740]
I thought it was relatively common knowledge within technical circles to never give smart TVs an internet connection, but I suppose not.
Also, it's worth noting that TVs built on Android TV have a massive advantage here in that you can plug them into your laptop and remove the content recognition package using adb (Android Debug Bridge) just like you might with a phone or tablet. This might be possible with Samsung Tizen and LG webOS devices too, but both are going to require more esoteric tooling.
These devices actively listen. First gen LG OLED - Went over to buddy's house with a new one. As an experiment I spoke spanish in front of the TV and the next ad to play on YouTube was in spanish language. We're talking two english speakers in a household environment that would have zero use of spanish outside of what I did.
I visited a week later and he had reset the TV because he started getting spanish ads. On my way out the door that time, I randomly said something like "I can't hold it in anymore, I need diapers!" and my friend was like "dude don't do that."
Sure enough, not a day later... It really just Depends.
> Fortunately, once you've toggled Live Plus off, you no longer have to worry about your TV screen constantly being read to see what you're watching and to give you targeted ads.
Oh? What if it's one of those, "if you opt out, we quietly reenable it a month later" settings, like LinkedIn notifications? What if it can be reenabled remotely for "law enforcement"? Heck, what if they just ignore the setting and keep mining what you watch? They've already effectively admitted to having the bare minimum concern for user privacy, and we know how willing companies are to break laws to get training data these days.
Related - it's a lot of the brands: Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, TCL
Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch (1258 points, 7 days ago, 641 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294456
"This setting" is called Live Plus.
it's a feature on LG smart TVs that uses ACR (automatic content recognition)
to analyze what's displayed on your screen. LG then uses that data to offer
"personalized services," including content recommendations
and advertisements.> To LG's credit, the TV automatically detected all of my devices -- my PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Fire TV Stick 4K Max -- and applied the best settings for each.
So.. they can take the time to do this properly.. but won't bother to ask you privacy preferences out of the box.
This should be illegal. If you collect data from customers then you need to be up front about that and the setting must be opt in. They clearly have the capability to do this. Their products need to be taken off the market if they can't act in a civilized manner.
> *If you don't want your LG TV quietly snooping on what you watch and using it to serve you ads, here's how to turn Live Plus off.
If LG makes money from snooping on you, what makes you think the “off” button actually turns it off? People have no way of verifying this.
To me this is the worst part of TVs (and cars, and fridges, and so on) are even allowed to have these features[1]: non-techinical customers have no understanding that “smart” hardware is capable of doing whatever it wants - and hide it from customers. You have no way of knowing what your “smart” thing is doing behind the scenes.
[1]: any feature thats sending data back to company servers, meaning you loose control of your data. Features that are 100% on-device is not what I’m talking about.
"I think my TV is spying on me."
1990s: "You should talk to a psychiatrist."
2013: "You should talk to my cousin Ernie, he's an IT whiz."
(via @kennwhite on twitter, 2013, now deleted)
>> When I first set up my LG TV, my main focus was ensuring the picture quality was perfect.
First things I did when I got a new LG TV:
* Turn off auto-smoothing
* Turn off high dynamic range
* Turn off audio processing
First things I did when I got my Apple TV:
* Turn off auto-smoothing
* Turn off high dynamic range
* Force everything to play at 1080p (delete all other resolutions)
There is a sharp cultural line between people who can't stand UHD/4K/48fps and those who want everything to look like pre-HD cinema, and people who love all the post processing. I'm on the wrong side. Which side are you all on?
Sceptre makes some decent dumb TVs with large screen sizes https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV-category1category73.htm...
”Valnet and our 346 technology partners ask you to consent…”
Oh, the irony.
12 years ago:
How do you know turning it off really turns off the spying? Maybe it just turns off the overt behaviors like recommendation based on the spying, while continuing to collect data.
You really have to disconnect it from the network, or find out what "phone home" connections it is making and block some of them.
TV manufacturers' interests are not perfectly aligned with users'. They may want to wow you with the picture, but definitely would like to monetize the heck out of the access to your viewing habits, and the internet connection you might mistakenly allow them to have.
Same applies to basically anything connected to the internet. Can it collect data useful for advertising, or otherwise legally saleable? If so, deny it access to the internet if you value your privacy. Or, when possible, replace its firmware / software with a reputable open-source version.
Follow the money. Can any money be made inconspicuously off you after a sale of the device? Are you happy with the way it would be done? Do some minimal research, and scratch your head.
My TV is the only device on my network with the privilege of being permanently quarantined by my firewall. I gain zero spying or ads and lose no features I actually care about.
I couldn't read the article because I have ad blocking on. We have a lot of bad patterns in the US economy. Tips instead of paying people a real wage (just eat in a country that doesn't do tips and tell me the US system is somehow better), for profit healthcare and also near the top 'ad' supported anything. These systems are cancers and totally not needed for a healthy economy and society.
I have an LG at home and I seem to remember it being the top device that appears in my pihole client list by number of blocked requests.
You can stop it much earlier than this. At setup time it gives you several policies to agree to. Only two of them are required; the rest are optional. The optional ones include Live Plus and several other systems for monitoring and advertising.
Just keep the tv offline.
Alternatively block it from the internet at the router, or connect to a LAN-only subnet. Keeps the benefits of local AirPlay, Chromecast, and HomeKit without being able to phone home.
Your TV will siphon your viewing habits and other data the minute it goes online.
Trying to fight it is way too much work unless you have a super configurable firewall, and even then you're playing whack a mole with ALLOW lists.
Connecting my TVs to my home network; not even once.
Click the link.
“Valnet and our 346 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store/access and process personal data on your device. This can include the use of unique identifiers and information about your browsing patterns to create the best possible user experience on this website. The following description outlines how your data may be used by us, or by our partners.”
Yeah, tell be ‘bout privacy
Ironic that this article has quite so many intrusive ads (which, if clicked, all report which article I was on to the advertiser!)
> If you've never heard of Live Plus before, it's a feature [...]
Is it really?
Re: keeping it off the network
LG also has a setting for "Wi‑Fi Direct / Wi‑Fi Screen Share". Can the TV connect to LG servers via that route? (Even if LAN and regular Wi-Fi are not configured?)
When I helped a friend set up his LG C2, we plugged it into Ethernet just long enough to update its firmware, then promptly disconnected it, never to even set up WiFi.
It’s not just smart TVs—pretty much every internet-connected device or service today seems to follow the same playbook: wrap a tracking mechanism inside a “convenient” or “personalized” feature. Whether it's TVs, phones, assistants, or even fridges, it’s becoming harder to tell what’s genuinely useful vs what’s just surveillance in disguise. The normalization of this design pattern feels more concerning than any single instance. Anyone else feel like this is just the default architecture of the modern consumer web now?
He is relieved because he found a option that disables the feature.
It baffles me how even programmers who code for a living can fall for this.
Thanks for sharing this, I had it on on mine. What does it mean? I use it every day as my PC monitor.
> Fortunately, once you've toggled Live Plus off, you no longer have to worry about your TV screen constantly being read to see what you're watching and to give you targeted ads.
Eh, I wouldn't be so quick to let my guard down. Even if you trust that that toggle actually turns the functionality completely off, there's no guarantee that it won't be enabled again in the next update.
Just keep your TV offline, as it always should be, and use it as a dumb display for trusted devices.
[dead]
>While it's frustrating that a setting like this exists in the first place
I think it's a good thing that consumers are given a choice on whether they want it or not.
> Fortunately, once you've toggled Live Plus off, you no longer have to worry about your TV screen constantly being read
Not true, one may still find themselves worrying, especially since the factory reset or software update could add more “features” that we don’t want. Fortunately, once you’ve sworn off buying an LG product, you no longer have to worry.