Invasion of privacy? Data mining?

[Mr.Delusional]

I came across this story and didn't know if anyone here had seen it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25018225

[-t40-]

That's why I will never buy "smart TV" and my next phone will be this one .
Spying on my PC should be enough for "all of them" .

[Noahtuck]

His investigation also indicated that the TVs uploaded information about the contents of devices attached to the TV

Ya gotta love that!!!!

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, I've got one of those TVs and was quite astounded and perturbed. Of course, I don't usually watch stuff from directly-attached devices anyway (instead using a DLNA server, or separate media player, etc - so my porn is still secure ).

I noticed that LG got into bed with some data mining & aggregating corporation this last year, and (for my particular TV) the software update version 6.0 (from this last month) was the first version where there was even an option of whether to gather data (or not). Of course, that only might mean that it is finally telling you about it, it could have been doing it much longer (though in my case, I doubt it because my previous version 5.x? was updated late last year - likely before they started working with the data company).

I noticed that just today they have issued a replacement update which is supposed to correct the "Default = On" and "Off doesn't really turn off" data gathering problems, as well as permanently abort the gathering of direct-attached and network-attached devices.

They gave form letters & hemmed & hawed when individuals first brought this to their attention, but they really didn't do anything major until the BBC started poking around. Then it was, "we intend to get to the bottom of this". At least they fixed it quickly. But it does shake my faith in LG products in general & smart TVs (and other smart devices) in particular.

Scott