Texas sues five TV manufacturers over predatory ad-targeting spyware
Source: Engadget
Texas sues five TV manufacturers over predatory ad-targeting spyware
AG Ken Paxton accused Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL of "spying on Texans."
Will Shanklin
Contributing Reporter
Tue, December 16, 2025 at 3:15 PM EST
Behold: Ken Paxton will now demonstrate that broken clocks are indeed right twice a day. The Texas Attorney General is notorious for, well, a very long list of reasons. But in this case, he at least appears to be doing consumers a solid: He sued five television companies for using ad-targeting spyware on their TVs.
Texas sued Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL for allegedly recording what viewers watch without their consent. The predatory technology, Automated Content Recognition (ACR), identifies the content being played on a device by matching short content fingerprints to a database.
ACR is essentially a Shazam for video. Except in this case, its sole purpose is to target your viewing habits to help line advertisers' pockets. "This software can capture screenshots of a user's television display every 500 milliseconds, monitor viewing activity in real time and transmit that information back to the company without the user's knowledge or consent," Paxton's press release says.
An LG Ad Solutions website boasts how ACR helps advertisers "target by content viewership, including show, network, app, service or genre." Since it works with anything running on the device, it can identify purchases and subscriptions, track gamers' habits and pinpoint users by region, city or zip code.
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Read more: https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/texas-sues-five-tv-manufacturers-over-predatory-ad-targeting-spyware-201500248.html
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... what the author says about stopped clocks. Paxton's concerns are driven in part by the manufacturers' ties to China.
https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-paxton-sues-five-major-tv-companies-including-some-ties-ccp-spying-texans
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