It's called Live Plus.

If you've never heard of Live Plus before, it's a feature on LG smart TVs that uses ACR (automatic content recognition) to analyze what's displayed on your screen (via The Markup). LG then uses that data to offer "personalized services," including content recommendations and advertisements.

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On Samsung smart TVs, for example, you can disable targeted ads by going to Privacy Choices, selecting Terms and Conditions, and toggling off Viewing Information Services and Internet-Based Advertisement Services. On Roku TVs, ACR can be turned off by disabling Use info from TV inputs, which is tucked away in the settings menu under Smart TV Experience.

Saved you a click.

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."

Modern electronics and computers are a nightmare.

I basically just assume that anything which is closed-source, networked and has sensors of any kind is a spying device. It's easier than evaluating each one individually.

It can't send screen shots if it doesn't connect to the internet. I own an LG TV and it's never been connected to a network.

For those of you who need it:

1. Press the Settings button on your remote (the gear icon).

2. When the side menu pops up, select Settings.

3. Choose the General option.

4. Scroll down and select System.

5, Select Additional Settings.

6. Toggle Live Plus off.

Rule #1 Do not connect tvs to wifi.

Problems solved.

For what we see nowadays in TV, I often thought to substitute it with a Fishtank, smarter content, HD 3D, true color and no spyware

LG doesn't make disabling Live Plus too hard, though you do have to click through a few menus. If you want to turn it off, here's how:

1. Press the Settings button on your remote (the gear icon).

2. When the side menu pops up, select Settings.

3. Chose the General option.

4. Scroll down and select System.

5, Select Additional Settings.

6. Toggle Live Plus off.

In the Settings menu on its TVs, LG says, "By turning Live Plus on, you understand that the content displayed on your TV can be recognized, and that the viewing information may be used to provide you with an enhanced viewing experience and personalized services including content recommendations and advertisements."

I've decided my next TV will be a Digital Sinage Display.

I have an LG "Smart" TV, but because I don't use it much (view the News in the Public TV and little more) I never connected it to the WiFi, so offline this Live Plus is irrelevant for me.

Why are people connecting their tvs to the internet at all vs using a dedicated streaming box? Are tvs now forcing you to do so on initial setup?

I haven’t bought a tv in 10+ years - want to get another but honestly feel sketched out at the prospect of doing so.

I got a nice OLED TV as my main monitor. I only connect it to the internet to run updates if I think it is necessary (there is also usually a USB option for updates too), then disconnect once that's done. Works great for sailing the seas and streaming whatever. It's unfortunate I paid for stuff that I won't use in the TV, but that's often the case with many products these days.