Big Tech companies have made billions selling Americans' privacy to the highest bidder.
One state attorney general finally had enough of the spying.
And smart TV makers were sued over this creepy surveillance scheme.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just exposed what's really sitting in 75 million American living rooms — and it's not entertainment systems.
They're surveillance devices. Recording everything. Twice per second. Without your knowledge.
Paxton filed lawsuits against five major television manufacturers — Sony, Samsung, LG, and Chinese-based Hisense and TCL — for running a mass spying operation inside Americans' homes.¹
That smart TV you bought to watch football? It's watching you back.
Your TV takes screenshots of your bank account twice per second
The companies embedded software called Automated Content Recognition into their TVs. ACR captures screenshots of everything on your screen every 500 milliseconds.²
Do the math. That's 120 screenshots per minute. 7,200 per hour. Over 172,000 screenshots per day.
Paxton called it "an uninvited, invisible digital invader."³
Nearly three-quarters of American households have smart TVs running this spyware right now.⁴
But ACR doesn't stop at tracking Netflix shows.
The lawsuit revealed ACR captures "YouTube videos, security or doorbell camera streams, and video or photos sent via Apple AirPlay or Google Cast."⁵
You're checking your bank account on a laptop plugged into your TV — they're recording it. You're reviewing confidential work documents on the big screen — they're capturing it. You're watching Ring doorbell footage to see who came to your house — they're logging it.
Every password. Every financial statement. Every private video call. Every security camera feed from your home.
All captured, packaged, and sold.
Wait, it gets worse — way worse
The companies combine this data with other information to infer "highly personal attributes pertaining to consumers' race, sex, or religious and political beliefs."⁶
They're building psychological profiles of you based on what you watch.
They know your political leanings, your religious views, your personal struggles, your financial status — all from monitoring your TV screen thousands of times per day.
Then they sell it to advertisers, data brokers, and whoever else will pay.
But the Chinese connection is where this goes from invasive to genuinely dangerous.
Hisense and TCL are partially owned by the Chinese government. China's National Security Law requires Chinese companies to hand over data to the Chinese Communist Party whenever Beijing demands it.
The Chinese government has legal authority to access everything those TVs capture from millions of American homes.
"Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans' devices inside their own homes," Paxton stated.⁷
The lawsuit spelled out exactly what's at stake: "The CCP may use the ACR data it collects from its Smart TVs to influence or compromise public figures in Texas, including judges, elected officials, and law enforcement."⁸
Corporate espionage becomes effortless when Chinese-made TVs surveil executives reviewing confidential business plans on their home screens.
Blackmail becomes simple when Beijing has recordings of what public figures watch in private.
This isn't paranoia. It's Chinese law.
TV companies made more selling your data than selling TVs
The FTC fined Vizio $2.2 million in 2017 for secretly spying on 11 million customers through ACR.⁹
By 2021, Vizio publicly reported they made more money selling the personal data they harvested through ACR than they made selling actual televisions.¹⁰
Their business model shifted from selling you a TV to selling you. The TV is just the trojan horse to get surveillance equipment into your home.
That's why these companies bury the surveillance disclosure in incomprehensible legalese and make opting out nearly impossible.
One survey found almost half of Americans with smart TVs weren't even sure if their TV was spying on them — despite 62% owning TVs with this exact capability.¹¹
The companies designed it that way on purpose. Maximum confusion. Maximum data extraction. Maximum profit.
Ken Paxton is the only one fighting back — and winning
Paxton just secured a record-breaking $1.4 billion settlement from Meta over illegal facial recognition spying. He got another $1.375 billion from Google for unlawfully tracking Texans' private data.¹²
A coalition of 40 states got $391 million from Google for similar violations — Paxton got almost a billion dollars more fighting alone.¹³
His lawsuits against the TV manufacturers aren't asking nicely for compliance. They're demanding civil penalties, injunctions to stop the spying, and whatever other remedies Texas law allows.
Meanwhile, the federal government under Biden did nothing. Other state attorneys general pursue cases that result in settlements these companies write off as cost of doing business.
Your smart home is a surveillance network
This TV spying scandal is just one piece of a much bigger problem.
The Internet of Things revolution promised convenience. Smart TVs. Connected refrigerators. WiFi-enabled washing machines. Alexa listening in every room. Smart doorbells recording everyone who approaches your house. Fitness trackers monitoring your health data.
Every single one is a surveillance device.
Your smart TV watches what you watch. Your Alexa listens to your conversations. Your smart doorbell records who visits. Your fitness tracker knows your health conditions. Your connected car logs everywhere you drive.
The data all gets collected, aggregated, sold, and resold to anyone willing to pay.
Insurance companies buy it to adjust your rates. Advertisers buy it to manipulate your purchases. Data brokers buy it to build profiles they sell to whoever wants them. Foreign governments buy it to spy on Americans.
None of it required a warrant. None of it needed probable cause. You just clicked "I agree" to terms of service you didn't read, and corporate America got legal permission to surveille you 24/7 in your own home.
The surveillance state isn't just government agencies monitoring suspected criminals anymore. It's every device in your house, watching and listening and recording and reporting back to corporate servers — and from there to anyone with a checkbook.
Americans invited Big Brother into their homes. They paid for the privilege. And now getting him out means throwing away half the devices they own.
Paxton is fighting to stop it in Texas. But until more attorneys general follow his lead, your living room remains a corporate surveillance post — with a great picture and streaming apps to distract you from noticing.
¹ Misty Severi, "Texas AG sues five major TV companies for allegedly spying on state residents," Just The News, December 15, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Texas Scorecard, "Lawsuits Allege Smart TVs Spy on Texans Inside Their Homes," December 15, 2025.
⁴ The Record, "Texas sues 5 smart TV manufacturers over data collection practices," December 15, 2025.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Severi, Just The News.
⁸ Courthouse News Service, "Texas AG sues smart TV makers over data privacy," December 16, 2025.
⁹ The Record, December 15, 2025.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Texas Attorney General lawsuit filing against TCL, December 15, 2025.
¹² Texas Attorney General Press Release, "Attorney General Ken Paxton Leads Nation in Protecting Americans' Data Privacy and Security," 2025.
¹³ Ibid.
