An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.
Secretly recording conversations in peoples homes sounds like it should be against the law in a number of countries.
Imagine someone working for the government, security services, or a defence contractor. I suspect LG may be in trouble with a number of National Security agencies.
Recording without consent is very much a crime in any two-party state, but my guess is that the TOS that people click past to use the TV gives them permission to record you. If it didn’t, they would be in big legal hot water.
EU really should regulate against this kind of behaviour
EU lobbies won’t ever allow it.
In the later years the EU regulations have been massively disappointing. Only favouring big EU companies and destroying little businesses and the european consumers.
Some disappointing eu regulations:
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The cookiesgate. Your data is still going around everywhere. You just have a pop up everywhere that means nothing.
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¿Replaceable batteries on smartphones? No, only for cheap chinese phones if so. The big players can pay for some european certification on the quality of their batteries and doesn’t need to be replaceable.
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¿Stop killing games? Hahahaha don’t ever think about it.
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You are buying too much, we need you poorer. So we put up a 3€ tariffs per
categoryproduct on chinese stores so you are forced to buy the exact same product to an european retailer at twice the price. -
We heard you like the environment, what about a new complicated tax on packaging so all small business cannot function and only big business are allowed to send products within the european union.
I think the days of the EU legislation saving the day are far off.
Liberalism will always be corrupted by capitalism at the end of the the day. Maybe some systems last a decade or two longer, but it’s all bound to fall.
IMHO Liberalism was manufactured by Capitalism as a left-sounding form of politics to allow mainstream parties which were genuinelly leftwing to move Right in Economic, Quality Of Life and even broad Equality whislt still appearing to be left-wing due to their pro-liberty posture on Moral and Social subjects.
I say this because I have yet to see any form of Liberalism in mainstream politics, ever, anywhere, which sought to maximize people’s freedom to access limitied or constrained resources which are required merelly to live, such as Land (which Land Ownership goes against), so I don’t think that at least in Politics there was ever any genuine Liberalism for Capitalism to corrupt.
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Problem us that there are too few tech literate politicians
The problem is way worse: big tech
contributes tobribes politicians to vote according to industry interests.Problem is lobbying.
The problem is the system that allows for corruption to exist in the first place.
ding-ding-ding
AKA legal corruption
“We own the glass, we own the TV, we own the living room. We know who is in an LG home.” –LG President of Ads
These are the Gamers Nexus videos btw. Support them and their work. Get some cool shirts and physical media while you’re at it.
My LG TV runs WebOS, which is a linux distro. I have been wondering how hard it is to root and replace with a distro of my own choosing. I had thought because my TV is pretty old that I was safe from the more sophisticated spying, but last week it interrupted what I was watching and would not let me continue using it without agreeing to new terms of use. This revived my interest in rooting it.
Waiting for the “No idea how this happened, we’re sorry and promise to make this better in future versions” moment - instead of admitting that this is just part of their business model.
Hoping for prosecution from the EU and at least one other country.
from the EU and at least one other country.
EU is not a country.
Current Commission is pushing for chatcontrol so they’d probably applaud LG’s practices.
