There is a choice buried in LG's updated smart TV terms, and neither option is good. Accept, and you take on legal responsibility for anyone the TV's AI voice features might record in your home. Decline, and according to Notebookcheck, your TV stops receiving security updates.
The terms were first flagged by Notebookcheck and reached a wider audience through a Gamers Nexus video, alongside separate findings about LG monitors installing ad software on Windows PCs. The TV story is quieter than the monitor story, but its implications reach further.
The core of it sits in section 6(d) of LG's terms of service, headed Voice Recognition and Privacy Compliance. The clause states it is the owner's "sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents" from third parties whose voices the product may capture, and to notify household members and guests that their voices may be recorded and processed, in order to comply with wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws. If someone objects, the terms direct the owner to disable the microphone or voice features in settings.
Read that again from the perspective of an ordinary TV owner. The contract obligates you to brief your dinner guests on voice capture before the set hears them, and if anyone declines, the remedy is that you go turn the microphone off yourself.
Three surrounding facts turn an odd clause into a genuine consumer problem.
First, the AI voice services in question ship enabled by default, according to Privacy Guides. Owners are opted in to the capability before they are asked to manage anyone else's consent.
Second, according to Notebookcheck, accepting the terms also permits LG to monitor how the product is used and to share that data with third parties. The consent obligations flow toward the customer while the data flows toward the company.
Third, the exit is penalized. Notebookcheck reports that owners of older sets can avoid the new terms by skipping webOS updates, but a TV that stops updating also stops getting security fixes. For an internet-connected device that sits on a home network, that is not a neutral choice. Declining the contract creates its own risk, which gives the agreement a coercive shape: consent, or accept a less secure device.
LG has not publicly responded in the coverage reviewed for this article.
Source: Gamers Nexus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM
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