If you’ve set up a new television in the last few years, there’s a good chance it’s watching you back. Not through a camera — through a feature called Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR, that most major TV brands activate by default the moment you complete setup.
ACR takes a screenshot of your screen roughly twice per second. It matches those images against a database of known content to identify what you’re watching. Then it reports that data back to the manufacturer, their advertising partners, and often third-party data brokers — without further notice, and without making the opt-out particularly easy to find.
In February 2026, Samsung became the first television manufacturer to settle a lawsuit brought by the Texas Attorney General over ACR collection, agreeing to stop collecting viewing data from Texas residents without explicit consent and to rewrite its consent screens to be “clear and conspicuous.” Lawsuits against Sony, LG, Hisense, and TCL are still active. That’s five of the most popular television brands in a court fight over whether their default data collection practices are legal.
What ACR Actually Collects
ACR captures significantly more than just “what channel you’re on.” The data typically includes:
- Content identification: Every show, movie, streaming service, game, or video you play — matched to content databases and timestamped
- Viewing duration: How long you watched, when you paused, and when you switched
- Device information: Unique identifiers tied to your TV, your network, and your IP address
- Ad exposure data: Which ads you were shown and for how long
Because the data is tied to a persistent device identifier, viewing data from your TV can be matched with your mobile device, shopping history, and location data by advertising networks that hold all three. The result is a cross-device profile that connects what you watch at home to what you do outside it.
The data is sold in two directions. Manufacturers sell it directly to advertisers and data brokers. Data brokers repackage and resell it — to insurance companies, financial institutions, political campaigns, and anyone else willing to pay. A New York Times investigation found major U.S. TV manufacturers selling viewing data to over 100 third-party companies.
Why ACR Is On by Default
The short answer is money. Hardware margins on televisions have been thin for years, and ACR data is a separate revenue stream that requires no incremental cost per unit.
A television with ACR enabled and a large user base generates ongoing data revenue for as long as the TV stays on. A television without ACR is just a television. For manufacturers competing on hardware price, ACR turns every unit sold into a recurring revenue source — which means there’s a direct financial incentive to keep it on by default and to make the opt-out process just difficult enough that most people don’t find it.
Samsung’s February 2026 settlement specifically addressed this: the Texas AG found that Samsung’s consent screens were not “clear and conspicuous” — meaning the disclosure was buried, hard to find, or framed to maximize opt-in rather than inform users about what they were agreeing to.
ACR also has a documented habit of re-enabling itself after firmware updates. Multiple users have reported that settings they deliberately turned off came back on after a manufacturer-pushed software update. There is no legal requirement in most jurisdictions to notify users when a firmware update silently changes their privacy settings.
How to Turn Off ACR on Every Major Brand
The exact path varies by manufacturer and model year, but these are the current settings locations.
Samsung
Go to Settings → Support → Terms & Privacy → Privacy Choices. Under “Viewing Information Services,” toggle the switch to off.
On older Samsung models: Settings → Smart Hub → Terms & Policy → SyncPlus and Marketing. Toggle off “SyncPlus.”
The settlement requires Samsung to make this setting more accessible — you may find it surfaced during setup on newer units.
LG
Go to Settings → All Settings → General → LivePlus and set it to off.
Also check Settings → All Settings → General → About This TV → User Agreements and opt out of “Personalized Advertising.”
Sony (Google TV and Android TV models)
Go to Settings → Privacy → Usage and Diagnostics and disable the toggle.
For Sony’s Samba TV integration: this appears during initial setup as a screen asking whether you want to “personalize your experience.” If you clicked through it, go to Settings → Device Preferences → Samba Interactive TV and disable it.
Vizio
Vizio calls its ACR system “Viewing Data.” Go to Menu → System → Reset & Admin → Viewing Data and set it to off.
Vizio has been among the most aggressive about re-enabling ACR after updates — check this setting after any firmware update.
Roku (built into TVs and streaming sticks)
Go to Settings → Privacy → Advertising and disable “Interest-Based Ads.” Then go to Settings → Privacy → Smart TV Experience and turn off “Use Info from TV Inputs.”
Roku sells viewing data from both its smart TV platform and its standalone streaming sticks, so this applies to Roku-powered TVs from any manufacturer — TCL, Hisense, Philips, and others — and to the HDMI sticks themselves.
Amazon Fire TV
Go to Settings → Preferences → Privacy Settings and turn off “Collect App and Over-the-Air Usage Data” and “Interest-Based Ads.”
After You’ve Opted Out: Three Things to Check
Turning off ACR is step one, but it doesn’t undo previously collected data or guarantee your TV is the only device on your network broadcasting viewing behavior.
Check your router logs. Smart TVs typically connect to manufacturer servers at regular intervals. Your router’s traffic logs can show what IP addresses your TV contacts and how often. Frequent outbound connections to advertising infrastructure — even after disabling ACR — may indicate that other telemetry settings still need to be addressed.
Look for smart TV companion apps. Many manufacturers have mobile apps that pair with your TV and sync data across devices. These apps often have their own data collection settings, separate from what’s on the TV itself. Check the privacy settings in any app you’ve installed to manage your television.
Revisit after every firmware update. Make checking ACR and privacy settings part of your routine after any TV software update. It takes two minutes and prevents months of data collection you didn’t consent to.
Why Your Living Room Is a High-Value Observation Point
Your television is now one of the highest-bandwidth observation points in your home. You likely use it for more hours per day than your phone, and unlike your phone, it probably doesn’t occur to you to think of it as a device with a data collection function.
The kind of data ACR generates — what you watch, when, for how long, in combination with your household’s other device profiles — is among the most valuable commercial data available. Viewing behavior correlates reliably with purchasing intent, political affiliation, health concerns, and life stage in ways that advertisers pay significant premiums to access.
The Samsung settlement and the ongoing lawsuits against other manufacturers signal that regulators are paying attention. But legal action moves slowly and applies retroactively to data already collected. The faster response is to opt out now, verify the setting survived the last firmware update, and treat the television with the same level of data-management attention you’d give any other internet-connected device in your house.
The same instinct that drives you to disable ACR — keeping your personal data from being collected and sold without meaningful consent — is worth applying to where you store your photos, files, and documents as well. The questions are the same: what’s collected, who sees it, and who decides what it’s used for.
The Practical Checklist
For each TV in your household:
- Find the ACR / Viewing Information / Viewing Data setting (see brand-specific paths above)
- Disable it
- Check for any companion app with separate privacy settings
- Revisit after the next firmware update
- Check your router traffic logs if you want to verify
It takes about ten minutes per television. The data you’re stopping will otherwise be collected and monetized indefinitely — with no practical benefit to you and no further notice to remind you it’s happening.