Home Theater Geeks 553 Transcript
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Scott Wilkinson [00:00:00]:
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I talk about the recent kerfuffle regarding the amount of data that LG and other TV manufacturers gather about you. So stick around.
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Scott Wilkinson [00:00:32]:
Hey there, Scott Wilkinson here, the Home Theater Geek. In this episode, I want to talk about the recent news story about LG and the data they collect. In early September, a YouTube channel called Gamers Nexus posted a long investigation into exactly what LG TVs capture in terms of data regarding what you watch and even more. And it turns out to be a lot. I'm going to be posting a lot of links to websites on this show in the show notes so that you can go check it out for yourself. The original YouTube video that Gamers Nexus came out with is over 2 hours long. But it's a very in-depth investigation into what LG TVs, specifically the LG G5 OLED, what kind of data they gather. And it's kind of disturbing.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:48]:
According to their testing, the LG G5 captures and stores Anything and everything it picks up with its onboard microphone, even ambient conversations. So even when you're not saying to the TV, giving voice commands to the TV, it's recording things that you might be talking about in earshot. And that's even if you're not connected to the home network, the TV is not connected to the home network. Even if it's turned off. It also happens to identify all the other devices on your home network. So this is kind of disturbing. Of course, it also captures all the content that you're watching, the audio and video, whether it's from onboard streaming apps in the TV Or anything coming into the TV via HDMI. Actually, it samples that content once every second or 2 or 3 or whatever and takes that data and creates what they call a fingerprint of what you're watching.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:08]:
Now, if your TV is connected to your home network, it's then connected to the internet. And the TV sends all this data back to LG and its partners. The information is encrypted, so even computer experts might not always be able to decode exactly what data are being sent. Now, the umbrella term for this activity process is called automatic content recognition. Or ACR. Ostensibly, ACR is used to recommend content similar to what you've been watching. So that seems innocuous enough, but much more important to the manufacturer, it helps them target advertising based on what you watch. And this is where they make their money.
Scott Wilkinson [00:04:12]:
You probably know that TVs sell very inexpensively these days. They operate on what's called a razor-thin margin, and they might even lose money. In some cases they do. Um, and that's why they're so inexpensive these days, but the manufacturers more than make up for that by selling the data they collect from you and from millions of others to advertisers. The Gamers Nexus report cited something like 216 million TVs that are doing this. Now, in response to the Gamers Nexus report, LG vigorously denied that that's what they're doing. But the Gamers Nexus report clearly demonstrated what, what they're doing. They showed evidence.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:15]:
And I'm going to post a link to the video that is Gamers Nexus response to the LG denial. And if you watch that, you'll notice that Gamers Nexus plays clips of LG officials saying that they, quote, own the glass of the TVs that you buy. So I guess they think you don't own that glass, they do, and they can do whatever they want with it. Oh man. Now there are many other articles and YouTube videos now about this story. Because it's huge. I particularly liked Caleb Dennison's take on it. I'm going to put a link to his YouTube video about it.
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:07]:
His YouTube channel is called Caleb Rated, which I love, and he mostly does reviews of TVs and other products, but he also comments on the industry. And, and I've known him for decades and I respect him highly, so I recommend his YouTube take on it. There are bunches of others you'll find on YouTube. Now, I have to say, I agree with Caleb's contention that the only real solution to this problem is to have federal regulations regarding this issue, things like transparency and the ability to opt out, which is very obscure right now. But in my opinion, that ain't going to happen, especially in the current political climate. So what can you do to protect yourself in your own home? The best solution is to disconnect your TV from your home network, uh, whether you use Ethernet or Wi-Fi, either one. If you disconnect The TV can't send its data back. Of course, this prevents the TV's onboard apps from working.
Scott Wilkinson [00:07:27]:
So if you use those, then that's not a good solution. I'll talk, talk about something else in a second. It also prevents firmware updates to the TV, which require the TV to be connected to the internet so that they can send you firmware updates, and those might be useful, might be worth doing. I myself do not use the onboard apps on my TV, and so I disconnect it from the internet except for firmware updates. I do connect it to update the firmware, and then I disconnect it again. I suspect that, that this actually circumvents the whole my whole effort entirely because I would bet that while it's updating the firmware, it's also sending all the data it has stored in its internal memory back to the manufacturer. So my solution is probably moot, sad to say. Other than that, you can try to wade through the menu system of your TV, uh, looking for ACR-related Settings and disable them.
Scott Wilkinson [00:08:45]:
There are quite a few, and this is difficult because manufacturers use different names for ACR, and it can be buried deep in the menu system, not easily found. And if you disable ACR, It might very well limit other features of the TV. Keep in mind also, when you update the firmware, even if you turned off all those ACR-related features, updating the firmware might very well turn them all on again. So you need to, once you update the firmware, go back in and turn them all off. Now, keep in mind that when you first set up your TV, uh, you probably have to agree to a very long user agreement, terms of service, or TOS. And few people ever read that thing because it's thousands of words and it's all in legalese. I think that's intentional. They don't want you to learn to read it carefully.
Scott Wilkinson [00:10:01]:
And it usually includes permission to enable ACR and share the data with the manufacturer. Also, if you do not agree to the TOS, the TV's functionality might be severely limited or it might not work at all. Now, there are many guides to turning off the ACR features. PCMag Has a good one. I'll put the link to the show notes in the show notes to it. And ZDNet also has a good guide to that. I'll put that link up there as well. Of course, if you disconnect your TV from the internet altogether, you can get streaming content from an external device like Roku, Apple TV, Fire Stick.
Scott Wilkinson [00:10:52]:
There are a bunch of them. Which is what I do. I don't use the TV's apps. Now, those devices undoubtedly track your viewing as well on their apps, but they can't access the TV's other HDMI inputs. Now, those devices also have their own ACR settings and privacy settings. For example, my Roku Ultra menu has a privacy section. Yay! With several settings. My privacy choices include do not share/sell my information and limit use of sensitive information, both of which are deselected by default.
Scott Wilkinson [00:11:40]:
So I selected both. There are also some advertising settings and voice settings. Including microphone access by the apps and speech recognition. I don't use voice activation, so I disabled those. They are on by default, but I turned them off. So we have to accept the fact that it's a brave new world for audio and video content with these smart devices, and it pays to be vigilant. Uh, we might not be able to completely control what data the manufacturers and advertisers, uh, can collect, um, but we can minimize it with careful and conscious monitoring of the settings in our devices. Um, and in the case of the TV, I would recommend disconnecting it altogether from the internet.
Scott Wilkinson [00:12:43]:
And using an external device for your streaming, and then watching carefully, looking carefully at the menus of those devices and turning off as much as you can of ACR-related features. So I am sorry to bring you this news, but it is what it is, and we need to be aware of it. Now, if you have a question for me, send it along to HTG@twit.tv, and I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. And if you have a home theater you're proud of, send me some pics. I'd love to see them, and maybe we'll get you on the show to share it with the audience. Until next time, geek out. Geek out.
