Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed suit against five of the world’s largest television manufacturers — Sony, Samsung, LG, Hisense, and TCL — alleging their smart TVs covertly track what Texans watch, down to the second, without adequate disclosure or consent. The suit calls out Hisense and TCL by name for their ties to the Chinese Communist Party, framing the case as both a consumer-privacy matter and a national-security concern.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
At the center of the complaint is a technology called automatic content recognition (ACR) — software built into most modern smart TVs that identifies exactly what’s on screen, whether it’s a cable broadcast, a streaming show, or a video game, and reports it back to the manufacturer. Read the Texas Attorney General’s official press release on the filing for the full list of statutory claims, and see Newsweek’s plain-language summary of the allegations for additional context.
KXAN’s Austin-based reporting and The Hill’s national coverage both note that this isn’t Paxton’s first move against the smart TV industry — his office has previously secured a court order against a separate CCP-aligned smart TV company for the same conduct.
How to Check — and Limit — What Your Own TV Is Tracking
You don’t need to wait for a lawsuit to resolve to protect your own privacy. Every major smart TV brand names its ACR feature differently and buries the opt-out in a different settings menu:
- Samsung: called “Viewing Information Services” — found under Settings > Terms & Policy.
- LG: called “Live Plus” — found under Settings > Additional Settings.
- Sony (Google TV): ACR is tied to Google’s Ads Personalization settings within the TV’s Privacy menu.
- TCL and Hisense (Roku or Google TV-based models): check both the TV’s built-in privacy settings and the underlying smart platform’s ad-tracking controls.
Turning these settings off doesn’t stop your TV from working — it simply stops the manufacturer from building a viewing profile tied to your household.
Part of a Bigger Pattern
This lawsuit lands the same week Pennsylvania sued Snapchat and amid an accelerating wave of litigation against tech platforms over data collection and child safety. See our full social media addiction lawsuit tracker for the parallel fight playing out against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google, and check out our recap of Pennsylvania’s new lawsuit against Snap for the latest child-safety filing.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. If you believe a company has misused your personal data, consult a licensed attorney or contact your state attorney general’s consumer protection division.