• by Wendy Davis , December 15, 2025

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued five smart TV manufacturers -- Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL -- for allegedly using automatic content recognition (ACR)  technology to collect and sell ad-targeting data.

Those companies' smart TVs "aren't just entertainment devices -- they’re a mass surveillance system sitting in millions of American living rooms," Paxton alleges in complaints filed Monday in state courts.

"Sony secretly monitors what consumers watch across streaming apps, cable, and even connected devices like gaming consoles or Blu-ray players," Paxton alleges in the complaint against that company. "This isn’t a glitch or side effect -- it’s deliberate. Sony harvests this data, builds profiles of consumers’ behavior, and sells it for profit."

The complaints against Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL include similar allegations.

Each company's smart TV is not "a passive mode of entertainment, but a relentless surveillance device" when automatic content recognition is activated, the complaints allege.

Paxton claims that the companies are violating a state consumer protection law by collecting automatic content recognition data without adequate disclosure, and by obtaining consent "in a deceptive or misleading manner."

Among other allegations, Paxton charges the companies with using "dark patterns" to trick consumers into opting in to automatic content recognition.

Each manufacturer's user interface "reveals a surveillance-by-default design philosophy that is intended to manipulate consumer consent to align with its business interests," the complaints allege.

For instance, according to the complaints, the companies make it relatively easy to accept the technology, and difficult to opt out.

The complaint against Samsung, for example, alleges that it "provides consumers with a one-click enrollment option" during the initial setup, but that opting out requires more than 15 clicks across multiple menus.

Paxton also alleges that the companies' names for their automatic content recognition technology misleads consumers.

LG, for instance, allegedly calls its automatic content recognition data collection program "Viewing Information Agreement."

"The mislabeling of [automatic content recognition] on the consent screens presented to consumers does not put them on notice, let alone give rise to any reasonable inference, about what activity they are enabling and certainly does not inform them that Viewing Information Agreement permits continuous real-time capturing of every sound and image on their Smart TV every 10 milliseconds," the LG complaint alleges.

The suits against the other companies include similar allegations.

Paxton is not the first to raise concerns about data sharing by smart TVs.

More than 10 years ago, Vizio was hit with a class-action complaint for allegedly sharing information about consumers' video viewing with ad-tech companies and data brokers.

In 2019, the company settled that matter for $17 million. It also agreed to display onscreen notices about data collection and allow consumers to either accept or reject sharing data.

Vizio also agreed in 2017 to pay $2.2 million to settle privacy charges by the Federal Trade Commission and New Jersey.

Advocacy group Consumer Reports has long raised concerns about smart TVs' use of automatic content recognition. "You may not be aware of it, but your TV knows -- and shares -- a lot of information about you," the organization wrote in October, adding: "You can say no to some data collection, but it's tricky to do this when you first set up a new TV and even harder to pull off later."