TLDR
Meta became infamous for treating personal information as fuel for an advertising empire, eventually paying a record $5 billion FTC privacy penalty after regulators accused Facebook of repeatedly undermining users’ privacy choices. Flock Safety has built a vast network of automated license-plate readers that privacy groups say amounts to mass location surveillance. Palantir builds systems designed to combine huge amounts of information and make people searchable, trackable, and actionable for governments and corporations.
LG deserves to be discussed in the same company.
The industries are different and the specific harms are not identical. But the moral failure is remarkably similar: collect as much useful information as technology allows, turn human behavior into a commercial or operational asset, and then insist that the people being observed should simply trust the company operating the machine.
LG’s version is particularly repulsive because it enters the home disguised as something much more innocent.
A television.
You pay LG hundreds or thousands of dollars. You hang the product in one of the most private rooms in your house. Then LG’s smart-TV ecosystem can, depending on the features and permissions enabled, recognize viewing content, process nearby Wi-Fi information for approximate location, discover devices, support advertising profiles, and feed viewing information to LG Ad Solutions. LG’s advertising operation openly sells what it calls information available “at the glass level.”
Texas sued LG over its ACR privacy practices. LG ultimately agreed in May 2026 not to collect ACR viewing data without informed consent and to provide clearer disclosures and simpler opt-outs.
I think that record earns LG a seat at the table with some of the most surveillance-hungry corporations in modern technology.
Not because LG is identical to Meta, Flock, or Palantir.
Because all four represent the same ugly idea:
Your life generates data, and they believe that data is theirs to exploit.
LG Used to Be a Company That Sold Televisions
There was something refreshingly simple about the old consumer-electronics business.
A company made a television. You bought it. The company received its money, and you received the product.
LG still makes televisions, of course. Some of them are excellent. Its OLED hardware is one of the reasons people put up with webOS in the first place.
But the economic relationship has changed.
A modern LG Smart TV is also a software platform. LG controls the operating system, updates, home-screen experience, optional data services, voice features, content-recognition systems, advertising integrations, and relationships with outside service providers.
LG’s own September 2026 privacy statement says that ACR-related viewing information may, depending on market and consent, be shared with LG Ad Solutions for audience segmentation, viewing analysis, interest-based advertising, and cross-device advertising. It also acknowledges that nearby Wi-Fi access-point information can be used to help estimate the television’s approximate location for ACR services.
That is not a dumb display.
That is a sensor-filled software platform with a business relationship that continues after the sale.
And that puts LG much closer to companies like Meta than LG probably wants consumers to realize.
Meta Showed the World What Happens When Privacy Becomes an Obstacle to Revenue
Meta, then Facebook, is the obvious comparison because its business model helped normalize the idea that private human behavior should be converted into advertising intelligence.
The Federal Trade Commission accused Facebook in 2011 of deceiving consumers about privacy, including making information public that users believed was private. Facebook settled and agreed to stronger privacy requirements.
Then came the extraordinary part.
In 2019, the FTC imposed a $5 billion penalty on Facebook after alleging that the company repeatedly used deceptive disclosures and settings to undermine users’ privacy preferences in violation of the earlier order. The FTC said many users were unaware that Facebook was sharing information with third-party apps and therefore did not take steps to opt out.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal added another layer. The FTC separately alleged that Cambridge Analytica and associated individuals used deceptive tactics to harvest personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users for voter profiling and targeting.
What made Meta so revolting was not merely that it had data.
It was the gap between what ordinary people thought they were doing and what the machinery underneath the service was capable of doing with their behavior.
LG has managed to reproduce an uncomfortable version of that dynamic inside the television.
The consumer thinks:
I am watching TV.
The advertising platform thinks:
This is audience intelligence.
LG’s ACR Business Is Advertising Surveillance in the Living Room
Automatic Content Recognition is the center of LG’s surveillance problem.
ACR allows the television to identify content from supported sources by creating fingerprints and comparing them with reference information. LG says the feature is optional, requires consent in markets where it is offered, and can be disabled. Those are meaningful protections, particularly after the company’s 2026 agreement with Texas.
But LG’s advertiser-facing materials show why the information exists.
LG Ad Solutions has marketed first-party ACR data around viewing behavior, content consumption, advertising exposure, and household audiences. The company has described its privileged position as operating at the glass level, meaning the TV manufacturer can understand activity from the display layer rather than just inside one individual streaming service.
That is an incredibly powerful position.
Netflix knows what you watch on Netflix.
A television manufacturer can potentially occupy the layer underneath Netflix, cable, games, advertising, and other supported sources.
The person on the couch sees entertainment.
LG sees an information stream.
That is the same moral disease that made Meta so hated: the compulsion to convert ordinary private behavior into something commercially legible.
Texas Had to Force LG to Improve Consent
LG’s defenders can say that current ACR is opt-in.
Good.
It should be.
But current controls did not appear in a historical vacuum.
Texas sued LG, accusing it of privacy violations involving smart-TV ACR. In May 2026, the Texas Attorney General announced a settlement requiring LG not to collect ACR viewing information without informed consent. The agreement also required clearer disclosures explaining how viewing information may be collected and used and a clear, simple opt-out.
That matters because informed consent is exactly where surveillance companies love to play games.
Technically, there was a setting.
Technically, somebody clicked a button.
Technically, somewhere in a legal agreement the behavior was described.
That does not mean a normal person understood the economic machinery behind the television.
Regulators intervened, and LG agreed to make the system clearer.
LG does not deserve applause for reaching the privacy standard it should have used voluntarily.
Flock Turned Driving Down a Public Road Into Searchable Surveillance Data
Flock Safety represents another version of the same mindset.
Flock builds automated license-plate-reader systems used by law-enforcement agencies and private customers. These cameras capture vehicles and license plates, allowing historical searches and alerts.
Flock describes the technology as a public-safety tool. The company says customers own and control their data, that it does not sell customer data, and that it has introduced stronger safeguards including shorter default retention, mandatory multifactor authentication, audit tools, and misuse detection. In August 2026, Flock announced that its recommended default retention for new law-enforcement customers would drop to seven days.
Those improvements are worth acknowledging.
They also tell you something about the extraordinary power of the system that required the safeguards.
The ACLU has repeatedly argued that Flock’s network constitutes mass surveillance because large networks of cameras can make ordinary vehicle movements searchable across jurisdictions. In 2026, the organization continued criticizing the company even after Flock announced privacy reforms, saying the changes did not resolve its broader civil-liberties objections.
The concern is easy to understand.
You drive to work.
A camera can record it.
You visit a doctor.
A camera may record the vehicle.
You attend a religious service, political meeting, gun store, rehabilitation clinic, protest, lawyer’s office, or somebody else’s home.
Individual plate reads may seem mundane.
A network of plate reads becomes a history.
That transformation, from harmless individual data points into a revealing behavioral record, is what makes surveillance infrastructure dangerous.
And it is the same fundamental transformation happening with LG.
A single TV event is nothing.
Enough viewing events become a profile.
Palantir Represents the Logical Endpoint: Make Everything Searchable
If Meta monetizes human behavior and Flock captures physical movement, Palantir specializes in making enormous collections of information operationally useful.
That is why the company has become such a symbol of the surveillance state.
Palantir works with governments and corporations to combine disparate data sources, find patterns, identify individuals, and support decisions. Its government work includes a longstanding relationship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In 2025, ICE awarded Palantir roughly $30 million to develop ImmigrationOS, with federal contract materials describing capabilities including enforcement prioritization and near-real-time visibility into self-deportation. Reuters reported in February 2026 that Palantir’s CEO defended the company’s surveillance technology and emphasized technical safeguards intended to prevent government overreach.
Federal spending records show the relationship continued expanding in 2026, including an ICE award valued at more than $86 million.
Civil-liberties groups strongly object to this work. The ACLU argues that Palantir’s systems can consolidate information that was previously kept in separate government databases, creating extensive dossiers and increasing the risks of misuse, erroneous targeting, and insufficient oversight.
Palantir says safeguards matter and that its technology can restrict inappropriate access.
That debate is larger than LG.
But the philosophical connection is obvious.
Palantir’s value comes from taking information that exists in different places and making it useful for identifying and acting on people.
LG’s advertising business does something much less consequential but structurally familiar: convert fragmented signals about television behavior into audiences that advertisers can understand and target.
Different stakes.
Same hunger for legibility.
Surveillance Companies Hate Data That Stays Meaningless
This is the common thread.
Human beings constantly produce information.
Most of that information used to disappear into the air.
You drove somewhere.
You watched a movie.
You visited a store.
You talked to a friend.
You bought something.
You changed the channel.
Nothing necessarily compiled those actions into a durable profile.
Modern surveillance businesses look at that forgotten information and see waste.
Meta sees social behavior that can improve advertising.
Flock sees vehicles that can become searchable location records.
Palantir sees disconnected databases that can become an integrated operational picture.
LG sees television usage that can become audience intelligence.
The business objective is to make behavior legible.
Who are you?
What do you watch?
Where are you?
What devices do you use?
What ads did you see?
What might you buy?
What household are you part of?
What category do you belong in?
Once your behavior is classified, somebody can make money from it or act on it.
That is why I place LG in the same moral family.
LG’s Case Is Particularly Offensive Because You Paid to Install the Surveillance Platform Yourself
Meta can at least point to the fact that Facebook and Instagram are largely free consumer services.
You are not literally paying thousands of dollars for a Facebook account.
Flock’s cameras are usually purchased by law-enforcement agencies, municipalities, businesses, or neighborhoods rather than unsuspecting drivers.
Palantir sells software to governments and enterprises.
LG’s arrangement manages to be insulting in a different way.
You pay LG.
You buy the hardware.
You carry it into your house.
You mount it on your wall.
You connect it to your private network.
You supply electricity.
You supply internet access.
And then LG’s advertising ecosystem can derive additional commercial value from the device.
That is almost artistically parasitic.
The customer funds the installation of the platform that can later become commercially valuable to the manufacturer.
LG Even Scans the Environment Around the Television
The recent LG controversy goes beyond viewing activity.
LG’s own September 2026 privacy statement acknowledges separate device-discovery and nearby-Wi-Fi-processing functions. LG says device discovery is used for connectivity and is not used for household profiling or advertising segmentation. It separately says nearby Wi-Fi access-point information and signal strength may, with applicable consent, help estimate approximate location for ACR.
LG presents those as separate technical functions.
Fine.
The broader picture is still insane.
A television is now sophisticated enough that LG needs a corporate statement explaining the distinctions among:
device discovery,
nearby Wi-Fi processing,
approximate-location estimation,
Automatic Content Recognition,
voice recognition,
advertising segmentation,
cross-device advertising,
and data sharing.
That is not a television in the traditional sense.
It is a data-processing platform that happens to contain an excellent display panel.
The Security Story Makes LG Even Harder to Defend
Privacy is only as good as security.
Gamers Nexus, Level1Techs, and independent researchers recently reported security vulnerabilities involving LG TVs alongside the broader privacy investigation. The researchers demonstrated surveillance capabilities on compromised hardware, including microphone-related behavior, while LG has strongly denied that ordinary uncompromised TVs routinely record ambient conversations.
That distinction matters.
But it does not make the result comforting.
A microphone-equipped computer mounted inside a private home creates a much more dangerous security failure than an old television ever could.
The more capabilities LG puts into the TV, the more attack surface LG creates.
This is what happens when companies cannot resist making appliances into computers and computers into data platforms.
Meta, Flock, Palantir, and LG All Have the Same Favorite Word: Trust
Every surveillance company eventually asks for trust.
Meta asks users to trust its privacy controls.
Flock asks communities to trust its data safeguards and auditing.
Palantir asks governments and citizens to trust its technical controls around extraordinarily powerful data systems.
LG asks television owners to trust that its optional services, ACR, advertising partnerships, network functionality, voice systems, and privacy settings will be used responsibly.
Trust is cheap.
Architecture matters more.
Incentives matter more.
History matters more.
Meta’s privacy history resulted in a $5 billion FTC penalty.
Flock’s technology has generated enough backlash that the company has been announcing new retention, audit, authentication, and transparency safeguards while civil-liberties groups continue attacking the fundamental model.
Palantir’s surveillance work has made it a recurring target of civil-liberties and human-rights criticism while its government-contract business continues expanding.
LG faced a government privacy lawsuit and then agreed to stronger ACR consent and disclosure requirements.
At some point, consumers are entitled to stop handing out trust like candy.
LG’s Dark Patterns Make the Contempt for Customers Harder to Ignore
LG’s privacy problem is not merely that it possesses powerful technology.
It is how customers historically interacted with privacy choices.
Texas accused LG of using dark patterns to manipulate consent. The state’s complaint described practices it characterized as Privacy Zuckering and a Roach Motel: easy consent followed by much harder withdrawal.
The most absurd example is LG’s Do Not Sell My Personal Information setting. Privacy-conscious users are trained by neighboring options to disable unwanted tracking or advertising features. But the Do Not Sell control has the opposite logic: the user must enable the do-not-sell instruction to activate the privacy protection.
LG has not publicly admitted it intentionally designed that setting to confuse anyone.
I find it ridiculous to believe LG did not understand the interface it created.
This is one of the world’s most sophisticated electronics companies. It builds advanced displays, software platforms, behavioral advertising systems, and global consumer products.
LG knows what ON means.
LG knows what OFF means.
LG knows how defaults influence behavior.
Pretending otherwise is insulting.
This Is Why “Evil” Is an Appropriate Opinion
Obviously, “evil” is not a regulatory category.
There is no Federal Trade Commission form where an examiner checks the box marked:
Yes, corporation is evil.
It is a moral judgment.
Mine is that corporations become evil when they repeatedly treat human beings as raw material while hiding behind technical legality, fine print, convenience, and corporate euphemism.
Meta did not become hated merely because it ran advertisements. It became hated because of the scale of personal information underlying that advertising and repeated controversies over consent and privacy.
Flock isn’t controversial merely because cameras photograph cars. It is controversial because a sufficiently dense network can transform ordinary movement into searchable surveillance.
Palantir isn’t controversial merely because it makes databases easier to use. It is controversial because those integrated data systems can give institutions immense power over identifiable people.
LG isn’t evil because it sells TVs with Netflix apps.
It earns my contempt because it took an appliance people willingly placed inside private homes and helped transform it into part of a behavioral-advertising infrastructure.
LG May Be More Insidious Because It Still Looks Harmless
Nobody buys Palantir software by accident.
Nobody sees a Flock camera mounted on a pole and mistakes it for a toaster.
Most people understand that Meta is an advertising company.
LG still benefits from the appearance of innocence.
It makes televisions.
Refrigerators.
Washing machines.
Monitors.
The brand sits in Best Buy looking like any other appliance manufacturer.
That normality is exactly what makes LG’s surveillance ambitions so offensive.
People do not mentally classify the television as hostile infrastructure.
They trust it because it is a television.
That trust gives LG a privileged position no social network could buy.
The product sits inside the home.
Often for a decade.
Connected to the private LAN.
Facing the couch.
Sometimes equipped with microphones.
Displaying nearly everything the household watches.
If you were designing a behavioral-data collection point from scratch, you would struggle to find a more valuable location.
LG Does Not Get a Moral Pass Because Other TV Companies Are Also Awful
A common defense is that LG is not alone.
Correct.
Samsung, Roku, Vizio, and other connected-TV companies have faced privacy controversies and built advertising businesses of their own.
That makes the industry worse.
It does not make LG better.
If five companies dump garbage into the same river, the fifth company doesn’t become environmentally responsible because pollution is an industry standard.
Likewise, an entire sector embracing ACR and advertising surveillance does not transform surveillance into respect for consumers.
LG chose this model.
LG profits from this model.
LG should be judged for this model.
LG Belongs in the Surveillance Hall of Shame
Meta built an empire around turning social life into advertising data.
Flock has helped make vehicle movement searchable at massive scale.
Palantir has built some of the most powerful data-integration systems available to governments and large institutions.
LG has turned the television into another node in the same surveillance economy.
The stakes are different.
The mechanisms are different.
But the underlying arrogance is remarkably consistent.
We can collect it, therefore we should.
We can analyze it, therefore it has value.
We can monetize it, therefore users should consent.
We can put the setting somewhere, therefore the choice was fair.
We wrote a privacy policy, therefore trust us.
No.
Consumers should stop accepting that logic.
The fact that technology makes surveillance possible does not make surveillance morally neutral.
The fact that data has economic value does not give a corporation a moral claim to it.
And buying an LG television should not mean inviting LG’s advertising business into an ongoing relationship with your household.
Among the Most Evil Companies? I Think LG Has Earned the Conversation
Is LG literally worse than every oil company, defense contractor, social network, or surveillance vendor on Earth?
That is not a useful calculation.
Corporate evil is not a fantasy-football ranking.
But LG absolutely deserves to be mentioned in the same conversation as companies whose names have become shorthand for surveillance, privacy abuse, and corporate contempt for ordinary people.
Meta belongs there.
Flock belongs there.
Palantir belongs there.
And LG has worked surprisingly hard to earn its place beside them.
It sold consumers a television and then built systems capable of extracting continuing informational and advertising value from what happens around that television. Regulators had to push it toward clearer ACR consent. Its advertising business openly values detailed viewing behavior. Its devices have become complicated enough to require explanations about local network discovery, nearby Wi-Fi processing, location estimation, voice systems, and cross-device advertising.
That is not respectful consumer electronics.
It is surveillance capitalism wearing an OLED panel as a disguise.
LG can keep making beautiful televisions.
Until it learns that owning the company that manufactured the screen does not mean owning the people sitting in front of it, I will keep putting it where I think it belongs:
right alongside the other corporate surveillance parasites.
References
Federal Trade Commission, Facebook privacy enforcement. The FTC’s 2019 action imposed a record $5 billion penalty and alleged that Facebook used deceptive disclosures and settings that undermined users’ privacy choices.
FTC: $5 Billion Facebook Privacy Penalty
Federal Trade Commission, Facebook’s earlier privacy settlement. In 2011 the FTC accused Facebook of deceiving consumers about privacy promises and information sharing.
FTC: Facebook Settles Privacy Charges
Texas Office of the Attorney General, LG privacy settlement, May 11, 2026. LG agreed not to collect ACR viewing data without informed consent and to provide clearer disclosure and simpler opt-outs.
Texas AG: LG Smart TV Privacy Agreement
LG Electronics, “Understanding Privacy on LG Smart TVs,” September 12, 2026. LG’s own response explaining ACR, device discovery, nearby Wi-Fi information, location estimation, advertising data, and user controls.
LG: Understanding Privacy on LG Smart TVs
Flock Safety, 2026 privacy and security changes. Flock says it is moving new law-enforcement customers to a seven-day default retention period and adding stronger audit, account-security, and misuse controls.
Flock Safety: 2026 Privacy and Accountability Updates
American Civil Liberties Union, Flock Safety criticism. The ACLU argues that Flock’s ALPR network remains a major civil-liberties threat despite the company’s announced reforms.
ACLU: Flock’s Surveillance Changes and Privacy Concerns
Reuters, Palantir and government surveillance, February 2, 2026. Reuters reported on Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s defense of the company’s surveillance technology and its ICE-related work.
Reuters: Palantir CEO Defends Surveillance Technology
USAspending, ICE contract with Palantir, 2026. Federal spending data documents an ICE award to Palantir valued above $86 million.
USAspending: ICE Contract to Palantir
ACLU, Palantir and ICE surveillance. The ACLU argues that Palantir’s consolidation of government and private-sector information creates broad dossiers and serious risks involving privacy, due process, and oversight.
ACLU: Palantir’s Role in Immigration Surveillance