Samsung has agreed to stop collecting and processing Automated Content Recognition data from Texas consumers unless they explicitly consent first, closing out a lawsuit Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed against the company in December. The agreement also forces Samsung to rebuild the consent screens on its televisions so viewers can actually see, and decide, whether their watching habits are being logged.
Samsung is the only one of five television makers Paxton sued to settle so far. Sony, LG, Hisense and TCL are all still fighting the same allegations in court.
How a TV turns what’s on screen into a data product
Automated Content Recognition, or ACR, works by sampling a few seconds of the picture or sound on screen, converting that sample into a digital fingerprint, and checking that fingerprint against a database of known shows, movies and commercials to identify exactly what is playing. Paxton’s original December lawsuit put a number on how often that sampling happens: the software “can capture screenshots of a user’s television display every 500 milliseconds, monitor viewing activity in real time, and transmit that information back to the company without the user’s knowledge or consent,” according to the attorney general’s announcement of the suit. Manufacturers then sell the resulting viewing profiles to advertisers, which is how a television’s purchase price can stay low while the device keeps generating revenue for years afterward.
“Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton said when he filed the case against Samsung, Sony, LG, Hisense and TCL Technology Group. “This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful.”
What Samsung actually agreed to change
The settlement Paxton announced in late February requires Samsung to stop any collection or processing of ACR viewing data without a Texas consumer’s express consent, and to roll out disclosure and consent screens the agreement describes as “clear and conspicuous.” “I commend Samsung for being one of the first smart TV companies in the world to make these important changes,” Paxton said in the settlement announcement. “Texans must be fully informed about whether their data is collected and be in full control of how it’s used.”
Samsung disputes the premise even while accepting the changes. “While we maintain our original television privacy policy and notices followed existing Texas state regulations, as a trusted brand, Samsung is proud to be at the forefront of protecting consumer privacy and security,” a company spokesperson said in a statement reported by The Record, adding that Samsung TVs “do not spy on customers” and that owners can already “control your privacy” through existing settings. That defense sits awkwardly next to the fact that Samsung is now rewriting exactly those settings under a legal agreement.
The specific toggle Texans and anyone else can already use sits several menus deep: on a Samsung set, the ACR feature is labeled Viewing Information Services, reachable through Settings, then Support, then Terms and Privacy, according to a walkthrough published by Malwarebytes. LG buries the equivalent option, called Live Plus, in a similar chain of general system settings, and Vizio labels its version simply Viewing Data.
Four more lawsuits, and a separate case in New York
Paxton’s case against Samsung was never really about Samsung alone. It was one of five nearly identical complaints, and the four that remain, against Sony, LG, Hisense and TCL, allege the same underlying conduct: capturing screen content without meaningful consent and monetizing the resulting profiles. Hisense and TCL, both headquartered in China, drew an additional argument in Paxton’s filing tied to China’s National Security Law, which he said gives the Chinese government a legal path to reach data those companies collect on American consumers.
Samsung’s exposure to this issue is not limited to Texas, either. The company is also named in a federal class-action complaint filed in New York, which alleges Samsung TVs track, store and sell viewing data to companies including Google and X in violation of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, according to court filings covered by Top Class Actions. That complaint echoes the 500-millisecond capture rate cited in Texas’s own lawsuit, and argues Samsung’s privacy notice understates the scope of what “processing” a customer’s viewing history actually involves.
None of that New York litigation is resolved, and neither is the pressure on the four manufacturers still fighting Paxton’s office. Those four cases will test whether a Texas court treats Samsung’s settlement as a template other manufacturers should follow, or whether Sony, LG, Hisense and TCL can mount a defense of ACR collection that Samsung chose not to attempt. What is settled, for now, is that a company facing a state attorney general’s lawsuit over exactly how much a television is allowed to know about the people watching it chose to change its software rather than defend the practice in court.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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