Your TV is watching you. Nobody mentioned that part.

I haven't connected my TV to the internet in years.

Every time I buy a new one, I unbox it, plug in an Apple TV, and skip the Wi-Fi setup entirely. My TV doesn't know my name. It doesn't have my network password. It doesn't know what I watch, when I watch it, or whether I paused halfway through.

People find this strange when I mention it. I help people set up their technology for a living. Shouldn't I want my TV to be as smart as possible?

I don't. And once you understand what a connected smart TV actually does, you might not either.

The Core Idea

If you've bought a TV in the last ten years, it's almost certainly a smart TV. And your TV is not just a screen.

The moment you connect a modern smart TV to the internet, it begins collecting information about what you watch. Not in a vague, general sense. In a detailed, constant, screen-level sense.

The technology behind this is called Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR. It works by capturing small samples of what's on your screen, multiple times per second, and matching those samples against a database of known content. It can identify what show you're watching, what app you're using, what commercials are playing, and even what's coming through a cable box or game console plugged into the TV.

This isn't a glitch. It isn't a hack. It's a feature that was turned on by default when you first set up your TV, probably buried inside a screen full of terms you agreed to without reading.

And it's not a fringe concern. In late 2025, the Texas Attorney General filed lawsuits against Samsung, Sony, LG, Hisense, and TCL over their use of ACR, alleging that these companies were running what amounted to mass surveillance programs through their televisions.

Why It's On By Default

Here's the part that matters for understanding the system.

Smart TVs are cheaper than they've ever been. A decent 55-inch set costs a few hundred dollars, which is remarkable compared to what that same screen would have cost ten years ago.

That price is partly subsidized by your data. Manufacturers collect your viewing habits and sell access to that information to advertisers, data brokers, and content platforms. Your watching patterns become ad targeting profiles. The TV itself is the product, but so are you.

This is why ACR is enabled by default. Not because it makes your experience better. Because it makes the business model work. The setup screen that asks if you'd like to "improve your experience" or "enable personalized recommendations" is asking for permission to track your screen in near real-time.

And most people click "agree" because they just want to start watching something.

The option to decline is on the same screen. It takes one extra tap. But the screen isn't designed to make that obvious.

Why I Don't Connect Mine

My approach is simple. I treat my TV as a screen and nothing else.

An Apple TV plugged into the HDMI port handles all the streaming. It gets the software updates. It runs the apps. It has its own privacy controls that I manage. The TV itself just displays what the Apple TV sends it. No Wi-Fi connection. No account. No tracking.

This isn't the only valid approach. But it's clean, and it means my TV has no data to collect because it has no connection to send it through.

If you already use a streaming stick or box (Roku, Fire TV Stick, Chromecast, Apple TV), you're already set up to do this. The streaming device handles the content. The TV just needs to be a screen.

You don't need to buy a new TV. You just need to disconnect the one you have.

What If You Want to Keep Your TV Connected

Not everyone wants to go offline with their TV, and that's fine. If you stream directly through your TV's built-in apps, disconnecting isn't practical.

But you can turn off ACR. Every major brand has the setting. They just don't make it easy to find.

Samsung: Settings > All Settings > Terms & Privacy > Privacy Choices. Uncheck "Viewing Information Services."

LG: Settings > All Settings > General > System > Additional Settings. Toggle off "Live Plus."

Roku TVs: Settings > Privacy > Smart TV Experience. Uncheck "Use Info from TV Inputs."

Sony: Settings > System Preferences > Samba Interactive TV. Select "Disable."

Google TV / Android TV: Settings > Privacy > Usage & Diagnostics. Turn it off.

Vizio: Menu > System > Reset & Admin. Turn off "Viewing Data."

Each brand calls it something different. Each brand buries it somewhere different. That's not an accident.

One other thing worth knowing: firmware updates can sometimes reset these settings. If you've turned ACR off, it's worth checking again after a major update. The setting you disabled might quietly re-enable itself.

The Bigger Picture

I'm not trying to make anyone afraid of their TV. This isn't about paranoia.

It's about the fact that when you bought a television, nobody told you it would watch you back. The box didn't say "tracks your viewing habits hundreds of times per second." The salesperson didn't mention it. The setup wizard framed it as "improving your experience".

This is the same pattern that shows up in almost every issue of this newsletter. The problem isn't that you're bad at technology. The problem is that important information was never surfaced clearly.

Now you have it.

One Simple Win

Pick up your TV remote right now.

Go into Settings. Look for Privacy, Terms, or something similar. Find the setting that controls viewing data or content recognition. It will be called something slightly different depending on your brand.

Turn it off.

It won't change how your TV works. Your apps will still open. Your streaming will still play. The only thing that changes is your TV stops reporting what you watch.

Every brand names it something different, and some of those names are genuinely creative.