Television Lawsuits Today: Samsung and LG Settlements, Hisense Order

If you own a Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, or TCL television, you are at the center of a smart TV spying lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in December 2025. The five suits accuse the manufacturers of using a tracking technology called Automated Content Recognition, or ACR, to capture what appears on your screen as often as every half-second and sell that viewing data without meaningful consent. Samsung settled in February 2026 and LG settled in May 2026. The cases against Sony, Hisense, and TCL are still active.¹

What the TVs Were Allegedly Doing

Automated Content Recognition is built into modern smart TVs and functions like audio and visual fingerprinting for your screen. It samples whatever is displayed, whether the source is a streaming app, a cable box, a Blu-ray player, or a game console connected over HDMI, and matches those samples against a database to identify exactly what is being watched and when.² Each manufacturer brands the feature differently. Samsung calls its version “Viewing Information Services,” LG calls it “Live Plus,” and Sony uses a third-party service called Samba TV.³

Texas alleged the companies used ACR to monitor households in real time, taking screenshots as often as every 500 milliseconds, then transmitting that data to build consumer behavior profiles sold to data brokers and advertisers. According to the complaints, that tracking could also sweep up sensitive information visible on-screen, including passwords and banking details.⁴

What Texas Says the Companies Did Wrong

The suits were filed on December 15, 2025 under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which carries civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and up to $250,000 per violation affecting consumers 65 or older. The state also sought temporary restraining orders to halt data collection while the cases proceed.⁵ Each complaint also served as notice of noncompliance under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, which took effect in July 2024 and gives companies 30 days to cure violations before the attorney general can bring additional claims carrying penalties of up to $7,500 per violation.⁶

The central allegation across all five suits is that the companies never obtained real consent. Rather than clearly explaining ACR and giving owners a straightforward choice, the state said, manufacturers buried disclosures in dense legal text during setup and bundled ACR opt-ins with the features needed to use the TV’s smart functions at all.⁶ Opting out later was anything but easy. A 2023 investigation by The Markup found that disabling ACR took between 10 and 37 clicks depending on brand, and LG required users to accept all tracking-related terms just to use any smart features.⁷

Why the Hisense and TCL Cases Are Different

Hisense and TCL are both based in China, and Paxton’s filings alleged that Chinese law gives the government authority to compel companies to turn over user data on request.⁸ The complaint against Hisense alleged the company’s privacy policy did not disclose that obligation, saying only that it “may transfer” personal information to the People’s Republic of China. The state put the number of affected Texans at roughly 1.27 million for Hisense alone.⁹

Paxton alleged the Chinese Communist Party could use smart TV data to target Texas judges and elected officials, conduct corporate espionage against people working in critical infrastructure, and pursue what he called a “long-term plan to destabilize and undermine American democracy.”⁸ “Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton said when the suits were filed.⁴

The Hisense Restraining Order

On December 17, 2025, two days after the suits were filed, a Texas state court in Comal County granted a temporary restraining order against Hisense. The order barred the company from collecting, using, sharing, disclosing, selling, or transferring any ACR data.¹⁰ The court pointed to evidence of “dark patterns,” a lack of informed consent, and inadequate privacy disclosures.¹¹

The Samsung Settlement

Samsung resolved its case first. On February 26, 2026, Paxton’s office announced that Samsung had agreed to stop collecting or processing ACR viewing data without express consumer consent and to put “clear and conspicuous” disclosure and consent screens on its smart TVs. Samsung was required to update its devices promptly.¹² No monetary penalty was publicly disclosed.¹³

The LG Settlement

LG settled on May 11, 2026. The company agreed to stop collecting viewing data through ACR without informed consent, display a pop-up on its smart TVs explaining how viewing data is collected and used, publish that disclosure on its website, and give consumers a clear and simple way to opt out.¹⁴ The LG agreement went further than Samsung’s in one respect: it included an explicit ban on transferring viewing data in any form to the Chinese Communist Party.¹ LG did not admit liability or wrongdoing, and again no monetary penalty was publicly disclosed.¹⁵

Where Sony, Hisense, and TCL Stand

As of mid-2026, the lawsuits against Sony, Hisense, and TCL were still active with no announced resolution.¹ The Hisense temporary restraining order remains the only court ruling on the merits of the ACR allegations so far.

How the Legal Theory Was Established: The Vizio Case

The Texas suits build on a case nearly a decade older. In February 2017, the Federal Trade Commission and the New Jersey Attorney General settled charges that Vizio had installed ACR software on roughly 11 million televisions without consumer consent, then sold the resulting viewing data, matched with household demographics such as age, income, and gender, to third parties. Vizio paid $2.2 million, with $1.5 million going to the FTC, and agreed to stop unauthorized tracking, delete most of the data it had already collected, and obtain express consent going forward.¹⁶

The FTC’s complaint said Vizio had disguised its tracking under a setting called “Smart Interactivity,” described as enabling “program offers and suggestions,” a feature the FTC said did not actually exist.¹⁶ A separate class action in federal court in the Central District of California later produced a $17 million settlement, with estimated payouts of $13 to $31 per affected consumer, and required Vizio to delete viewing data collected during the class period.¹⁷ Vizio established the principle Texas is now applying: tracking what people watch and selling that data requires clear, upfront consent, and hiding the practice behind a vague setting label is deception.

What You Can Do on Your Own TV

You do not have to wait for the lawsuits to run their course. ACR can be turned off in the settings menu on every major brand, though the path is often buried. According to The Markup’s testing, finding and disabling the setting takes between 10 and 37 clicks depending on manufacturer.⁷ On Samsung, the setting is labeled Viewing Information Services; on LG, Live Plus; on Sony, Samba TV.³ Under the Samsung and LG settlements, those disclosures and opt-out paths are supposed to become clearer on updated devices going forward.¹⁴

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