TLDR
LG would like consumers to believe its smart-TV privacy practices are transparent, optional, and respectful of user choice.
Texas wasn’t impressed.
The Texas Attorney General sued LG in December 2025, accusing the company of unlawfully collecting consumers’ television viewing information through Automatic Content Recognition technology without proper knowledge or consent.
Then, in May 2026, LG reached a settlement requiring stronger informed consent, clearer disclosures, and an easier opt-out before ACR viewing information can be collected.
A settlement is not a court verdict proving every allegation Texas made.
But here’s the part LG apologists shouldn’t ignore:
The state sued. LG settled. And LG agreed to change the exact privacy practices the state had attacked.
So spare me the corporate lecture about how wonderfully transparent this system has supposedly been all along.
The LG privacy lawsuit matters because it cuts through one of LG’s favorite defenses.
Consent.
When criticism of LG’s smart-TV data collection comes up, the company points out that features such as viewing-information collection and interest-based advertising are optional.
Technically, that may be true under current terms.
But consent isn’t magic.
A company doesn’t get to bury invasive technology behind a vague setup screen, obtain a click, and then pretend the consumer made an informed choice.
Texas apparently agreed that the distinction mattered.
Texas Accused LG of “Mass Surveillance”
The language in Texas’s December 2025 lawsuit was not subtle.
The state sued LG Electronics U.S.A. under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Its petition accused LG of “mass surveillance of consumers” and alleged that LG chose “data extraction and advertising dollars over honesty and respect for consumer privacy.”
Those are Texas’s allegations, not judicial findings after trial.
That distinction matters.
But the allegations themselves were severe.
Texas said LG used Automatic Content Recognition technology to collect information about what consumers watched and argued that the collection occurred without adequate knowledge or consent.
The state simultaneously sued Samsung, Sony, Hisense, and TCL.
So LG wasn’t uniquely accused of inventing this garbage.
It’s an industry problem.
Congratulations, LG.
You had company.
What Is ACR and Why Did Texas Care?
Automatic Content Recognition lets a smart television identify material appearing on the screen.
At a simplified level, the system can sample what is being displayed or heard, generate fingerprints, and compare those fingerprints with known content.
That makes ACR useful for identifying:
- television programs
- movies
- advertising
- streaming content
- viewing habits
Advertising companies love this information because knowing what appears on a television helps them understand audiences and measure whether ads actually reached particular households.
Consumers have a somewhat different interest.
They may want their fucking television to show a picture and mind its own business.
Texas alleged that the balance between those interests had gone badly wrong.
The Texas Lawsuit Wasn’t Complaining About an Abstract Privacy Policy
This wasn’t a theoretical debate about whether smart TVs are generally creepy.
Texas alleged violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Its December 2025 petition accused LG of unlawfully collecting personal data through ACR and framed the practice as surveillance occurring without consumers’ knowledge or consent.
The Attorney General’s office described ACR as an “uninvited, invisible digital invader.”
Colorful language?
Absolutely.
But I understand the sentiment.
A television is sitting inside your home.
The company already received your money for it.
If that television is going to analyze what you’re watching so the resulting information can become commercially useful, consumers should understand exactly what they are agreeing to.
Not approximately.
Not after reading six linked agreements.
Not because some button technically existed during setup.
Actually understand it.
Then LG Settled
Five months later, Texas announced an agreement with LG.
The date was May 11, 2026.
Under that agreement, LG committed that it would no longer use ACR technology to collect consumers’ viewing data without informed consent.
Texas said LG would update its televisions with a pop-up disclosure explaining how viewing information may be collected and used.
The disclosure would also appear on LG’s website.
And users would receive what Texas described as a clear and simple way to opt out of viewing-data collection agreements.
Pause there.
Why were clearer disclosures needed?
Why was a new pop-up necessary?
Why was a simpler opt-out necessary?
Why specifically emphasize informed consent?
Because apparently “everything was already crystal clear and wonderfully consumer-friendly” was not where the process ended up.
LG Did Not Admit Every Texas Allegation
This is where accuracy matters.
A settlement is not the same thing as a trial.
Texas made allegations.
LG agreed to settlement terms.
That does not mean a judge or jury took every factual claim in Texas’s complaint and declared it proven.
We should not pretend otherwise.
But companies also don’t get to use the absence of a trial verdict as a magic eraser.
The practical outcome is still real:
Texas challenged LG’s ACR practices.
And LG agreed to change them.
That is a material fact.
LG Now Says Viewing Information Is Optional
LG’s current support documentation says agreements related to viewing information, voice features, and personalized advertising are optional.
As of September 2026, LG tells users they can review and change those selections under:
Settings > Privacy & Terms > User Agreements.
LG also says its Terms of Use and Privacy Policy are required for smart services such as Netflix and YouTube, while optional agreements can be declined.
Good.
That’s how it should work.
But LG doesn’t deserve a parade for providing clearer privacy controls after regulators came knocking.
If anything, the timeline demonstrates why enforcement matters.
Corporations respond to incentives.
Sometimes the incentive is:
“Treat the customer better.”
And sometimes it is:
“The Attorney General is suing us.”
Funny how quickly the second one gets attention.
The Settlement Specifically Required Better Disclosure
This point matters because corporations frequently hide behind the word consent.
Consent isn’t simply a checkmark.
Meaningful consent depends on understanding.
Texas’s settlement required a pop-up explaining how viewing data may be collected and used.
That requirement says something important.
A consumer needs to know what the system does before agreeing to it.
That seems obvious.
Yet somehow an entire advertising-technology industry has built itself around making enormously consequential data processing sound like harmless personalization.
“Viewing information.”
“Relevant advertising.”
“Content recommendations.”
“Enhanced viewing.”
Those phrases sound pleasant.
Try this instead:
Your television can use Automatic Content Recognition to identify what you’re watching. That information may be useful for advertising and measurement. Do you want this enabled?
That’s the level of clarity consumers deserve.
LG’s Advertising Business Gives This Context
LG isn’t collecting viewing information in some commercial vacuum.
LG Ad Solutions exists to monetize access to television audiences.
Its marketing materials promote first-party ACR data, audience targeting, home-screen advertising, measurement, attribution, and cross-device campaigns.
LG says its ACR technology can inform viewing behavior across linear television and streaming.
This is why consent matters so much.
The information has value.
If it didn’t, nobody would spend all this money building systems to collect, process, analyze, combine, and sell advertising against it.
When LG asks for viewing information, consumers should understand that they’re not merely helping engineers figure out whether the TV crashes during Netflix.
There is an advertising business sitting on the other side.
Calling This “Personalization” Doesn’t Make It Less Commercial
Ad-tech companies love the word personalization because it makes surveillance sound like customer service.
We collect your behavior so we can personalize your experience.
We analyze your habits so we can show more relevant content.
We profile your household because we want advertising to be helpful.
Give me a break.
Advertising data has commercial value.
That’s why it exists.
Maybe personalized ads are genuinely preferable to random ads for some people.
Fine.
Let those people knowingly opt in.
But don’t dress an advertising-data business up like LG is doing consumers a favor by studying them.
The consumer is contributing something of value.
Their behavior.
That deserves meaningful consent.
Texas Also Addressed Transfers of Viewing Data
The May settlement included another notable requirement.
Texas said LG agreed to prohibit transfers of Viewing Data, in any form, to the Chinese Communist Party.
The Texas litigation leaned heavily on concerns involving China because some of the television manufacturers it sued have Chinese ownership or ties.
LG itself is South Korean, so the political framing surrounding the broader five-company lawsuit does not apply identically to every defendant.
But the settlement language demonstrates how seriously Texas approached control over viewing information.
Once a smart TV generates data about household behavior, the obvious next question becomes:
Who gets it?
The TV manufacturer?
An advertising subsidiary?
A measurement company?
A data partner?
A government?
A broker?
Consumers should not have to reverse-engineer an advertising ecosystem to answer those questions.
LG’s Current Defense Sounds Better After LG Was Forced to Improve Things
LG now emphasizes that ACR is opt-in.
Its September 2026 response to the Gamers Nexus controversy likewise said ACR is provided on an opt-in basis and isn’t used for advertising if the user doesn’t consent to the applicable optional agreement.
Good.
But context matters.
A few months earlier, Texas announced a settlement specifically requiring LG not to collect ACR viewing data without informed consent and requiring clearer disclosures and simpler opt-outs.
So when LG responds to criticism with:
It’s optional.
The appropriate answer is:
It damn well better be.
This Is What Regulation Is Supposed to Do
I’m not interested here in whether someone likes or dislikes the Texas Attorney General politically.
This isn’t an election article.
The relevant question is whether the enforcement action produced concrete consumer protections.
It did.
According to the state’s settlement announcement, LG agreed to:
- informed consent before ACR viewing-data collection
- clearer disclosure of how viewing information is collected and used
- website disclosure
- a clear and simple opt-out
- restrictions concerning certain viewing-data transfers
Those are tangible changes.
Consumers benefited.
And LG’s advertising business had to live with more explicit boundaries.
Good.
That’s exactly what consumer-protection enforcement should accomplish.
The Whole Smart-TV Industry Deserves This Treatment
Texas didn’t just sue LG.
It went after multiple major television manufacturers.
That matters because the problem is structural.
Televisions used to have a straightforward business model.
Manufacturer builds TV.
Customer buys TV.
Manufacturer gets money.
Then manufacturers discovered that connected televisions could generate additional revenue.
Advertising.
Content placement.
Behavioral analytics.
ACR.
Cross-device marketing.
Measurement.
The television could continue producing commercial value for years after the original sale.
And suddenly consumer privacy became inconvenient.
LG deserves criticism for its role in that system.
So do the others.
LG Should Have Done This Without Being Sued
This is the part that pisses me off.
What Texas demanded isn’t some impossible standard.
Tell people clearly what is being collected.
Explain how it will be used.
Ask before collecting it.
Make saying no easy.
That’s it.
This isn’t rocket science.
LG didn’t need a brilliant privacy engineer to discover those principles.
It needed enough respect for the customer to implement them aggressively from the beginning.
Instead, we got litigation and a settlement.
Only then do we get to hear about stronger disclosure and informed consent.
How generous.
The Correct Default Is No
Here’s how smart-TV privacy should work.
ACR should be off when the television comes out of the box.
Advertising personalization should be off.
Viewing-history collection for commercial purposes should be off.
Voice-data collection beyond what is strictly needed for a deliberate command should be off.
The consumer should then receive a simple explanation of each feature.
Want it?
Turn it on.
That’s meaningful choice.
The burden should not be on ordinary buyers to find hidden settings after wondering why their television manufacturer seems remarkably interested in what they watch.
LG’s Privacy Excuses Deserve Skepticism
LG says its current features are optional.
Good.
LG says users can change their agreements.
Good.
LG says ACR isn’t used for advertising without applicable consent.
Good.
But none of that requires us to forget the history.
Texas sued LG over these practices.
Texas explicitly accused the company of unlawful privacy violations.
And LG agreed to stronger informed-consent, disclosure, and opt-out requirements.
The legal nuance is straightforward:
Those accusations were allegations.
The settlement was not a trial verdict establishing every allegation as fact.
The consumer conclusion is equally straightforward:
Government enforcement resulted in LG agreeing to provide consumers stronger protections around the exact data collection at issue.
That speaks for itself.
LG Doesn’t Deserve Trust Just Because It Finally Added Better Checkboxes
Trust is earned before a regulator shows up.
Trust is building the product around data minimization.
Trust is explaining invasive features in plain English.
Trust is making commercial tracking opt-in from day one.
Trust is giving customers the easiest possible path to say no.
Trust is not pointing to newly improved privacy controls after you’ve already been sued and acting like consumers are unreasonable for remaining suspicious.
LG wants access to incredibly valuable information about what happens on televisions inside private homes.
Fine.
Then LG should face an incredibly high consent standard.
And if it doesn’t meet that standard voluntarily, states should keep doing exactly what Texas did.
Make them.
FAQs
Did Texas sue LG over smart-TV privacy?
Yes. Texas sued LG in December 2025 as part of litigation against five major television manufacturers over alleged unlawful ACR viewing-data collection.
What did Texas accuse LG of doing?
Texas alleged that LG unlawfully collected consumers’ viewing information through Automatic Content Recognition without adequate knowledge or consent and asserted violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. These were allegations in the state’s lawsuit.
Did LG lose the case at trial?
No. The matter discussed here resulted in a settlement rather than a trial verdict establishing every allegation.
What did LG agree to change?
Texas says LG agreed not to collect ACR viewing data without informed consent, to provide clearer disclosures about collection and use, and to provide an easy way to opt out.
Can LG users decline ACR now?
LG’s current support materials state that agreements involving viewing information, voice features, and personalized advertising are optional. Users can review selections under Privacy & Terms > User Agreements on supported models.
Is ACR unique to LG?
No. ACR is used across the smart-TV industry. Texas’s December 2025 action also targeted Samsung, Sony, Hisense, and TCL.