I asked every TV manufacturer 17 questions about how they spy on you

tupac_speedrap

The problem is the regulators in the US are in bed with the companies so they can say whatever and do the complete opposite and then get fined a trivial amount of money and just keep doing it

ale42

https://archive.is/jBJdd

detourdog

I was disappointed that the article described Apple's answers to some questions as not direct. They should have published the indirect answer. Let the reader judge the answers.

Oarch

> looks at TV, forgetting its brand. Toshiba. Hmm. Not in this list.

lux-lux-lux

I’m sure this would be a lot more compelling if the site wasn’t unusable.

PinkaDunka

Interesting that in the beginning it says 'We know that many TVs use automatic content recognition (ACR)' but according to answers none of those manufacturers do. So which TVs do the ACRs, and why Verge did not send those questions to them? Hisense?

MBCook

I was impressed LG answered every question and quite directly, assuming they’re telling the truth. I was quite disappointed in Apple for dodging so many of them and giving non-answers. They need to tone down the corporate speak and take a lesson from LG. When asked if a user can erase everything the correct answer is not a thesis on privacy, it’s saying “Choosing Erase all settings and data will remove everything on the device back to factory fresh state”. They already have the perfect answer. Apple has good answers for many of the questions they skipped too. But they look bad by not even trying to answer.

OroPla

Dell isn't in the list, so I guess we keep pretending that monitors and TVs are somehow different.

bita_nidir

Remember, "no answer" is still a data point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference

headz

> I put together 17 yes-or-no questions... And they still managed to answer them in multiple sentences, and sometimes multiple paragraphs.

ourmandave

Did any of them confirm the myth that the TV attempts to auto connect to any public wifi it can find or comes with a built in 5G modem?

throwa356262

LG: No. ACR in LG TVs does not collect or store screenshots, screen images, screen recordings... Hold on, we already know this is not true. There is even an option in the settings to disable this (which is usually automatically reverted by LG within a week). The setting has the obvious name of "Live Plus".

StevenWaterman

I want to know what Sony said. Because apparently they responded to the request, but answered 0/17 questions

cael450

Is there any TV I can buy that doesn't spy on me?

krupan

It sounds like the best option is to get a TV, never connect it to the Internet, and use a separate Roku device. Or go a step further and build your own Linux HTPC. Of course if you are already sharing everything about yourself with Google/Amazon/OpenAI/Anthropic then who cares?

Henchman21

Almost all these TVs run Android. So where’s the GrapheneOS for TVs?

gijsbos

Who watches TV anyway?

evolve2k

Well well well, we know now which cat has had their face in the cream (aka who is clearly visible most guilty).. that would be Hisense, who got caught today and had nothing to say. For all the company’s who had reponses along the lines of “we don’t do thing X that some others are doing”.. full bets it’s Hisense doing each of these things.

swframe2

I think it is better to use AI to root the devices, get them to run linux and run an open source media app. The TV manufacturer's default OS is low value.

waffletower

Apple did/does not want to take the Sony/Samsung product diversification path, but it is a shame for them not to branch out more. An actual Apple branded TV under Tim Cook probably would have honestly respected our privacy. I blocked my LG TV's MAC address from accessing our wifi.