Texas filed separate lawsuits against Samsung, Sony, LG, Hisense and TCL, alleging that the television manufacturers collected detailed viewing information through automatic content recognition without consumers' informed consent. Attorney General Ken Paxton accused the companies of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Automatic content recognition, commonly called ACR, identifies material displayed on a television by analyzing visual or audio signals. According to the lawsuits as described by The Verge, the technology can recognize programming delivered through streaming services, cable, YouTube and Blu-ray discs. Paxton alleged that its reach could also include feeds from security cameras, material shared through Apple AirPlay or Google Cast, and screens from computers or game consoles connected through HDMI.
The complaints center not only on collection but also on how users are asked to enable the feature. Texas alleged that setup prompts were deceptive and that disclosures about the technology were vague, hidden or misleading. The state further claimed that viewing information was sent to manufacturers without users' knowledge and could then be used or sold for targeted advertising.
Some of the accusations were highly specific. Paxton alleged that Samsung and Hisense televisions captured an image of the screen every 500 milliseconds. The filings also raised national-security concerns about Hisense and TCL because the companies are based in China. Those characterizations are allegations by the attorney general, not findings by a court.
Texas asked for civil penalties and orders preventing the five manufacturers from collecting, sharing or selling ACR information associated with consumers in the state. Samsung, Sony, LG, Hisense and TCL had not immediately responded to The Verge's requests for comment when its report appeared. The absence of responses left the companies' legal and technical defenses outside the supplied record.
The dispute places a familiar advertising technology inside the private setting of a living room. ACR can help produce audience measurements and content recommendations, but the Texas cases argue that those functions become deceptive when users are not clearly told what is captured or how the resulting information is handled. The litigation will require the state to prove its claims and will give the manufacturers an opportunity to contest both the factual allegations and the legal theory. No court ruling was reported with the filings.
The report also noted an earlier enforcement action involving Vizio. In 2017, the company paid $2.2 million to settle similar ACR-related allegations brought by the Federal Trade Commission and New Jersey. That settlement does not determine the new Texas cases, but it shows that television-viewing data has been a subject of regulatory scrutiny before.
