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I didn't realize my LG TV was spying on me until I turned off this setting
(www.pocket-lint.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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It's going to get to the point where we'll need 3rd party open source OSes for every device in our homes.
"Your toaster is spying on you, use ToastOS instead."
Reminds me of the Cory Doctorow story Unauthorized Bread. It's as depressing as it is relevant even though it tries to shoot for hope.
Was just going to post this as well.
I still believe this leaves a good market for a brand to just make privacy focused TVs.
If I’m buying a $1000 TV, I would pay $1100 if it means it’s just a screen and not smart.
The only obstacle is enough people wanting this.
Considers how much the average person cares
Maybe it’s a fantasy.
The problem is you can just buy the $1000 TV you actually want and a $50 Android TV box to get the best of both worlds.
Now if only there was better competition on that Steaming box front.
Agreed. I tried looking for a big monitor instead of a TV last time we were in the market for one and there were shockingly few options.
You can already do that. Just skip the WiFi step in the setup then plug your own box into the HDMI port.
Google TV, WebOS and Tizen models let you do this, only Roku and Fire TV don't AFAIK.
There is a market, but it's to small for companies to care about
It is a fantasy because unfortunately it's not a large enough market for any company to care about.
I have faith that soon even 'dumb' devices will ship with small multi-year battery powered cell-connected evices that cannot be disabled, and are not part of an OS.
Yeah. Looks like RootmyTV is only for older models of LG TVs and that's kind of sad.
You're not too far off: there are water kettles and rice cookers (Xiaomi) and vacuum cleaners with app support (and definitely not collecting telemetry...)
There are also refrigerators, washers, dryers and dishwashers that collect telemetry.
And toilets
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