DO NOT BUY: LG’s Spyware TVs, Monitors, and Wiretapping Concerns

This is a $1,200 LG

34GX900A-B

Ultra Gear monitor that we bought. And

the $1,200 experience out of the box is

adwear and maybe spying on you. Windows

Update has been silently installing

McAfee Adwear onto user systems after

the user connects to certain LG Ultra

Gear monitors. After seeing a sudden

influx of user reports online and in our

team inbox, we bought our own monitor to

see if we could replicate the issues. We

replicated it simply by plugging it in

and turning it on. AdWare was our thanks

for spending $1,200

with LG. Once its app is installed, LG

technically possesses permission to use

quote all system resources end quote as

well as collect geoloccation, device

data, online activity, contacts, user

credentials, transactions, and more.

Better still, in the two days it took us

to put this content together, LG dropped

the price of its monitor in half,

seemingly because of the bad press

everywhere, and my displays at my desk

that I bought 3 years ago got the same

popup for the first time. 3 years after

buying the monitors. All thanks to a

Windows update all through its monitor

app installer. And that's despite

installing and running without ever once

asking the user or even prompting them

for consent at any stage in the

pipeline, which we questioned the

legality of. In the same week, LG also

rolled out pop-ups on certain LG smart

TVs, explaining how the new update added

quote AI based service terms end quote

to its user agreements. While LG's

pop-up doesn't explicitly mention it,

users who update their TVs are now

agreeing, quote, that it is your sole

responsibility to obtain all necessary

consents from any third parties whose

voices may be captured by the product

and to notify household members and

guests that their voices may be captured

and processed in compliance with

applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping,

and privacy laws." End quote. First of

all, when your cover your ass statement

has a blanket statement about making

sure you, the customer, are complying

with wiretapping and eavesdropping laws

by using a product. There's a there's a

big problem. Like, this should be an

immediate red flag for anybody. And

secondly, most people will never see

this and it's probably entirely

uninforceable anyway. There are a lot of

instances where it's not even possible

for someone to give legal consent to

being recorded by microphones in a smart

TV from LG. For example, a child not

capable of legally giving consent

because that's not how that works. Uh,

additionally, it could be an issue of

just I you're supposed to tell your

friends like, "Hey, thanks for coming

over. Before we get started, some

housekeeping rules. Uh, you see that TV

over there with the LG logo on it? Um,

just so you know, by coming into my

abode, you are agreeing that our

conversations may be recorded by that

thing to be harvested by LG. And then

also, it's going to pop up ads on top of

the ads from the YouTube videos that

we're watching with ads in them. So,

just so we're all clear, uh, if you

could please sign here and then you can

come in and we can eat some Cheetos. I

think that's how they imagine it. LG

also notes that users who choose not to

upgrade may lose access to security

updates. Forcing customers to decide

between privacy and security, except by

choosing privacy and not security.

You're still choosing not privacy

because now you're insecure, which is a

different form of privacy concerns

altogether. Uh digging into this

further, we discovered that this is

actually not unique for LG. This is a

regular occurrence for them. It's part

of an anti-consumer

course of action they've taken with

their TVs and their monitors. In fact,

the new pop-up disclosures on LG's TVs

actually appear to be a direct result of

LG's recent settlement agreement with

Texas residents.

>> Texas Attorney General Kim Paxton has

reached a settlement with electronics

company LG about concerns over smart TV

privacy. The agreement stops LG from

collecting viewing data through

automated content recognition technology

without users consent. Under the

settlement, LG must add a popup

disclosure on smart TVs, explaining how

viewing data may be collected and used.

>> In Paxton's petition against LG, he

alleged quote, "LG secretly monitors

what consumers watch across streaming

apps, cable, and even connected devices

like gaming consoles or Blu-ray players.

This isn't a glitch or side effect. It's

deliberate. LG harvests this data,

builds profiles of consumers behavior,

and sells it for profit. End quote. And

the list goes on. In 2024, LG

implemented advertisements into its

smart TV screen savers. In 2025, it

force installed an unreovable Microsoft

Copilot service on users smart TV home

screens, eventually caving to user

backlash by generously allowing you to

delete a shortcut icon. Within the last

decade, consumers across the US have

filed at least eight proposed class

actions against LG. Is this not enough

money for you? LG, you have to do all

the other stuff, too. But our viewers

asked us to dig into this. We

immediately ordered the $1,200 display

straight to GN. And let's take a look.

Before that, this video is brought to

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Learn more at the link in the

description below. We'll start with our

confirmation and validation of user

complaints, which we were able to do

several times on Windows 11 systems,

multiple of them, basically without any

effort at all, just plugging it in.

After connecting our new LG Ultra Gear

monitor to our PC, Windows Update

silently installed LG's extension and

software component driver updates.

Shortly thereafter, we noticed LG

Monitor app Installer in the recommended

section of our Windows start menu,

notated by a recently added tag. We then

used Windows Reliability Monitor to

verify that Windows automatically

installed the app only one single minute

after the initial driver updates

completed. It didn't ask us. There were

no pop-ups for it. It just did it. And

if we didn't notice it in the start

menu, because it's an onstartup app, an

app boot application that autoinstalls

silently in the background, a lot of

users might never notice it. We might

not have noticed it if not for, you

know, doing what we do. LG Monitor app

installers sole purpose is to install

other apps for your monitor while

egregiously advertising subscriptions

for McAfee scam detector.

Yes, I will take irony for $1,200,

please.

Blowware is not new for things like

pre-built PCs and laptops. And there are

kickback agreements between software

installers like Mac and Norton and the

pre-built or the laptop sellers. So,

that unfortunately is normal even though

it's awful. But this is, at least to us,

this is new. I don't think I've

personally ever seen a peripheral third

party device that isn't a full computer

with Windows installed on it come with

adwear to sell you McAfee and whatever

other they might pull through

their software service. So this should

not be allowed to spread cuz imagine

your keyboard doing this to you where

you plug in your mouse and it downloads

McAfee. The program's help section

helpfully explains, quote, "When you

connect the LG monitor, Windows updates

will automatically install the LG

Monitor app installer." End quote. Once

installed, we get hit with a massive

popup in the lower right corner of the

screen on every single boot. Great

experience. Typically, the pop-up

appears as shown here, advertising a

30-day free trial with McAfee. Although

very rarely, the pop-up recommends users

install LG's Switch, Calibration Studio,

Dual Controller, or Channels apps

instead. For reference of how often it

shows McAfee in comparison to the

others, which is the advertisement, we

captured 32 consecutive boots and found

the LG monitor app installer displayed

the McAfee pop-up 31 out of 32 times, or

roughly 97% of the time in that

particular sample that we turned on the

computer. And because it's connected to

the internet, they could theoretically

sub out that McAfee installer and add at

any point for something else instead.

Clicking on the Macy link reveals a

30-day free trial with text that is

pretty small and notes this quote. After

the trial, M Plus Premium is $39.99 for

the first year. End quote. We don't know

exactly what prompted the surge of

recent complaints from our viewers

emailing us about this because it seems

to have been going on for a little

while, but clearly something has changed

to cause this sudden increase in

complaints. Maybe they're putting it on

more devices now. Combing back through

various online reports, we found that LG

Monitor app installer criticisms

actually date back to at least 2024.

Here's a list of affected monitor model

numbers that we've compiled from user

complaints. This is not a complete list,

but this is everything that we saw when

doing some searching online. Our current

findings suggest that this issue is

specific to certain monitors in LG's

Ultra Gear product line. It may affect

others as well. Editing Steve here. Fun

fact, one day after recording that line,

again, as said in the intro, my monitor

got hit by this. And the one I'm looking

at right now that has the popup on it,

literally right now, is in the ultra

fine line. It's the 32UN 8880-B

32 in that I bought in 2023. This is

exactly what I want to be greeted with

when I turn my computer on at work.

Something that looks like malware that I

didn't expect from a device I've already

owned for 3 years that I thought had

established some sort of trust. But

anyway, as it relates to preventing apps

from autoinstalling based on hardware, a

Reddit user on Reddit explains that

users can open the edit group policy

from Windows taskbar, expand the

computer configuration, administrative

templates, and then system subfolders.

And then the user said that you can

select the device installation tab,

double click prevent automatic download

of applications associated with device

metadata, and then switch the settings

state to enabled before selecting apply.

Ultimately, this is not a trivial

process for the average computer user.

We did verify though that this set of

steps appears to work for that problem.

But

why would why would you think you'd have

to do that if you plug a monitor into

your computer? It's insane. We shouldn't

let it shift this way. Ultimately, one

of our primary concerns is that

according to its page in the Microsoft

Store, LG Monitor app installer is given

permission to use all system resources

and quote access your internet

connection. End quote. This all seems

unnecessary for something that is a

monitor. And if you don't know, this is

what companies who sell TVs are already

doing, but worse there, where they can

actually capture the pixels on the

screen, send it back for data

harvesting. And I don't believe for a

second that the companies collecting

that data can't tie it back to a user

through either an IP address or device

ID or something like that because they

might claim it's metadata,

but there's no assurance of that as an

end user. No actual reasonable

assurance. And this is all part of data

logging campaigns to extract and squeeze

more value out of people who are already

paying hundreds of dollars or thousands

of dollars for devices. Now, in this

instance of the monitor, we don't have

any evidence that they are capturing the

pixels on the screen. I'm not aware of

that happening yet on monitors. If

someone is, please let us know. Uh I

only know of it happening on TVs, but

you can see the window of what is

acceptable and normal shifting. And it

doesn't help that they're kind of shady,

very shady about how they let you know

about what they're capturing. But hey,

you agree that you inform everyone else

that you're in compliance with

wiretapping laws. The App Store page

also lists LG's privacy policy and its

additional terms. This seemingly allows

LG to collect geoloccation, device data,

online activity, contacts, user

credentials, transactions, and much more

through its monitor app installer. Now,

in our replication process of the user

complaints online, we were not at any

point given some form of consent or

agree form for this stuff. The app

installed without asking us, without our

consent. It ran without our consent, and

it appears to collect user data once

installed without consent, without even

potentially being aware of its

existence. And to us, this seems likely

illegal. I would be very curious if this

is also behaving in the same manner for

our viewers in Europe. That would be

pretty interesting given the GDPR laws.

And I I wonder if first of all, if

they're selling any of these and you buy

you get a US model in Europe, probably

still illegal for them to do that. I'm

not an expert on GDPR law, but it sure

seems that way. Uh but either way, if

they even if they have an EU model, we'd

love to hear from you if you can

replicate this there on something you

bought in Europe because probably

there's an avenue there for a, you know,

a potentially successful lawsuit. But

anyway, we're not experts on that stuff,

so let's just keep going with the

technicals. OEMs using Windows to

install software on user systems

automatically isn't new. We see the same

practices from Alienware, Razer, Asus,

MSI, Dell, and HP, and so on. The main

difference is those are typically for

computers bought pre-built, not for

parts of a computer that you buy

separately and then plug into a

computer. So letting LG get away with

this is setting a dangerous precedent.

Malware Bites defines ADWware as quote a

type of malicious software that secretly

installs itself on your device and

displays unwanted advertisements and

pop-ups. In some cases, Adwear can even

track your online behavior and display

personalized ads. Typically, it uses an

underhanded method to either disguise

itself as legitimate or piggyback on

another program to trick you into

installing it on your PC, tablet, or

mobile device. End quote. Ironically,

McAfee describes the difference between

harmless and harmful adwear, stating,

quote, legitimate adwear asks for your

consent to send ads and software promos.

End quote. In contrast, LG's adwear for

McAfee actually uh did not what was it

again? ask for our consent to send ads

and software promos. That was a quote a

single time before installing or upon

opening the first time. So McAfee

appears to be self-identifying as

illegitimate adwear. Regarding McAfee

and LG's ties to one another, McAfee and

LG have been partnered since at least

2011. And in 2021, McAfee quote

announced a new partnership with LG to

pre-install a 30-day free trial of

McAfee Security on LG PCs in Korea and

worldwide unquote. a precursor to the

two's latest developments. We ultimately

think that LG misused or abused some of

the vendor tools that Microsoft makes

available to them and provides. But we

also think Microsoft bears

responsibility here. One, because they

enabled it. Two, because they probably

are in bed with all these companies

anyway. Uh but for its role in

installing adwear on users devices

through third party applications like

LG's, Microsoft is also responsible. And

we don't just mean because of the adwear

and spyware that is Windows 11, which

there's a lot of other concerns about

with three-letter agencies. But

Microsoft Defender security research

team stated in a 2013 blog post, quote,

"Microsoft security products consider

Adwear something that the user should be

informed about and given the choice of

whether to remove end quote." Despite

Microsoft's previous disposition that

users quote should be informed end quote

of Adwear, it doesn't appear to enforce

any consequences when software vendors

fail to notify users of said Adwear.

Interestingly, Microsoft's current

digital safety policies, note, quote,

"downloading software without the

consent of an end user or using

fraudulent or misleading means to

deceive users into clicking links,

visiting websites, or downloading

software," end quote, is in its examples

of prohibited activities. So, Microsoft,

we would contend, engaged in what it

itself calls prohibited activities by

facilitating the software to download

without the consent of the end user. LG

also recently deployed its new webOS

update pop-ups on certain LG TVs. The

update adds features like the ability to

view win probabilities on live sports,

but not betting, and quote, create music

with AI end quote. You can even

configure what LG calls kids mode. No

word on if that removes the win

probabilities. Now, we couldn't help but

feel like adding uh view win

probabilities on live sports might

somehow be connected to big gambling,

but it's not like there's some

partnership or direct link between LG

and MGM Resorts, one of the largest

casino brands in the world. I that would

be crazy. they had like a long-standing

partnership together or something.

Oh, okay. The updates pop-up disclosures

also mention adding AI based service

terms to its terms of use. While not

disclosed in the pop-up, the LG AIU

service terms state, quote, "You

acknowledge and agree that it is your

sole responsibility to obtain all

necessary consents from any third

parties whose voices may be captured by

the product and to notify household

members and guests that their voices may

be captured and processed in

compliance." Again, as we said in the

beginning, with applicable wiretapping,

eavesdropping, and privacy laws due to

the tactical nature of generative AI,

output could potentially lead to

physical injury, property damage, or

other harm to life, body, or property.

The AI based services may rely on a

variety of data sources to operate and

improve, which may include LG content,

data from your use of products or

services, content licensed from third

parties, and content that is publicly

available." End quote. even as a blanket

cover your ass statement. These terms

are absurd. And we have a hard time

believing anybody would buy LG devices

if this were written on right on the

front of the display when you saw it in

person in a store. It seems like no one

would want to buy it if they were more

forthcoming and disclosing these terms.

Uh instead, LG hides the lines in the

middle of an 8,000word document, which

is substantially longer than this

script. actually think takes like two

times as long as this. It's going to

take 30 minutes for me to read through

this script. It would take even longer

to read those 8,000 words with that

hidden in the middle of it. LG's webOS

pop-up, though also informs users,

quote, "If you choose not to upgrade,

access to new terms and security related

updates may be limited." End quote.

Again, leaving users to decide between

privacy and security. LG's history of

adwear and improperly collecting user

data goes way back, though. In 2013, Dr.

Beat, an IT consultant, used WireGuard

to analyze his network traffic and

discovered that his TV was sending his

channel name, device ID, broadcast type,

device platform, and other unencrypted

watching data to lgapptv.com

every time he changed the channel. Dr. B

then claims that after disabling

collection of watching info and his TV

settings, the TV continued transmitting

data, but quote, "This time a flag in

the data had been changed from one to

zero to indicate the user had opted

out." End quote. as reported by the BBC.

So, it was still harvesting and

collecting it as far as we can tell. And

some CSV somewhere had one value flipped

to a zero to tell them, hey, we have

this data, but the user doesn't want us

to use it. That

That's an interesting use of opting out.

He also discovered that his TV had been

sending file names stored on an external

USB drive. Dr. Beat confirmed this by

creating a spoof AVI file named uh

something that get us demonetized to

read and eventually finding it in the

traffic logs that were outgoing. You

could also see how this would lead to

domestic spying and surveillance, for

example, by governments or information

being reported back to agencies. If this

sounds insane, increasingly we've seen

that it's not. for example, with

Microsoft's GDID, where it has now been

shown to partner with, for example, the

FBI to tie specific device IDs to

people. After reporting his findings to

LG, it supposedly escalated the issues

to LG's UK office before responding,

quote, "The advice we have been given is

that unfortunately, as you accepted the

terms and conditions on your TV, your

concerns would be best directed to the

retailer. We understand you feel you

should have been made aware of these T's

and C's at the point of sale and for

obvious reasons LG is unable to pass

comment on their actions. End quote.

After media outlets picked up Dr. Beat's

blog post, LG validated his findings but

claimed it wasn't storing the

transmitted data. LG released a

statement. Quote, "We have verified that

even when this function is turned off by

the viewers, it continues to transmit

viewing information, although the data

is not retained by the server. A

firmware update is being prepared for

immediate roll out that will correct

this problem on all affected LG smart

TVs. So, when this feature is disabled,

no data will be transmitted. LG regrets

any concerns these reports may have

caused and will continue to strive to

meet the expectations of all our

customers and the public. We hope this

update clears up any confusion." End

quote. Ah, yes. It's a classic. No, no,

you're all confused. this data that we

just admitted we were accidentally

sending back. Anyway, that's you're

you're very confused. It's the Do we

have Do we have any more gas for the

light? I've got a We just were running

out of gas in this light. We also found

a thread about the LG monitor app

installer situation with one Reddit user

claiming that his Pi Hole DNS server

repeatedly blocked three different LG TV

and ad URLs in the last week.

Ironically, Dr. Beat claims he was

prompted to investigate after his quote

new LG smart TV was displaying ads on

the smart landing screen. End quote

highlighting one of LG's recurring

themes. In 2024, RS Technica reported

that LG had implemented ads into its

screen savers, reporting, quote, "As you

might have expected, LG didn't make a

big splashy announcement to consumers or

LG TV owners about this new ad format.

Instead, and ostensibly strategically,

the September 5th announcement was made

to advertisers." End quote. On Reddit,

one user claimed he randomly started

receiving advertisements three years

after purchasing the TV. So, it's like a

time bomb of ventification. At some

point, the thing you bought years down

the line might go from something that

you've been apparently happy enough to

keep around for 3 years to something

that changes in its base functionality.

And if you're a company too, that seems

like an awfully powerful asset to flip a

switch at some point and suddenly every

device you've distributed becomes a

platform to either harvest data or

distribute

unsolicited information and

advertisements through years after the

fact. There's a big avenue for abuse

there other than you know the actual

abuse that exists inherent to that

process. Another commented, quote,

"They're not only audiovisisual, they're

loud, too. With my TV on volume 10, it

sounded like it was around volume 45.

Woke me up at 3:00 a.m., too. When the

TV in the living room just woke itself

up to blast an ad out of nowhere the

other day." End quote. In late 2025, LG

force installed an ir removable

Microsoft Copilot service on users TVs,

only giving customers the ability to

delete it after heavy backlash. Around

this time, Texas Attorney General Ken

Paxton filed a petition against LG,

claiming, quote, "Through automatic

content recognition technology, ACR, LG

secretly monitors what consumers watch

across streaming apps, cable, and even

connected devices like gaming consoles

or Blu-ray players. This isn't a glitch

or side effect. It's deliberate. LG

harvests this data, builds profiles of

consumers behavior, and sells it for

profit." End quote. The AG's press

release explains how ACR works, stating,

quote, "This software can capture

screenshots of a user's television

display every 500 milliseconds, monitor

viewing activity in real time, and

transmit that information back to the

company without the users knowledge or

consent. The companies then sell that

consumer information to target ads

across platforms for a profit." End

quote. Given that LG itself has to state

that it's not violating wiretapping and

easedropping laws, which is definitely

something somebody who isn't wiretapping

or easedropping would say, uh, we can't

recommend buying any LG products right

now. It's unfortunate, but the fact that

something like a TV someone bought can

three years later start behaving in a

different way from what they were sold

like by acting as a vector for

advertisements for a thing that you

bought and paid for physically and

exists in your house physically and has

been used without those things for

years. We just we can't recommend it

because, you know, unfortunately this

display I we're not monitor reviewers. I

don't know the the specifics of its

performance versus others, but this is

probably the highest end display I've

ever bought. We're not big display

people here. $1,200 is a lot of

money for a monitor. Like before the RAM

crisis, that's what I might pay for a

computer, you know? And like this, it

seems nice. I don't know exactly, but

just hardware wise, it seems like a nice

display. I would never buy this thing if

I weren't investigating the adwear with

the team because it's this is insane.

And the agreements, you know, as we

crawled through the privacy terms and

when Tannon on the team told me he found

the line about how they make you agree

that anyone entering your house near

your smart TVs uh is going to be

informed that it might capture their

voice. That's when it went from like,

okay, annoying McAfee thing to we cannot

recommend any LG products because it's

crazy. Uh, the amount of adwear, the

fact that some users have complained of

getting experience changing spyware

pop-ups 3 years after purchase, concerns

about wiretapping LG TVs in the same

room, although they would call it not

wiretapping. I mean, the fact that they

have to make you agree that you're the

one doing it if you don't inform people

is a concern. and the Windows update

auto installs without consent just mean

we would recommend avoiding LG displays

altogether. Additionally, if you

currently own any LG smart TVs or

monitors, we'd recommend disconnecting

those devices from the internet if

possible. It's really discouraging that

this is the new norm for so-called smart

TVs that you buy and pay for. And we

feel like the situation is made worse by

the fact that there's not any obvious

alternatives a lot of the time. In his

filing, Texas's AG Paxton accused not

just LG, but all five of the largest TV

manufacturers, Sony, Samsung, LG,

Highense, and TCL, of data harvesting

without consent, leaving consumers

feeling like they have no other option

but to accept the TV manufacturers

anti-consumer practices. Now, a lot of

these complaints we're talking about

today, it's two things. It's the adwear

that installs with this the monitor so

the McAfee stuff and then it's the

collecting and harvesting of information

what I would call spyware that happens

through for example it's TVs and so then

we come back to combining those things

where the next concern we currently

don't have uh evidence of this yet but I

would be shocked if this isn't the case

would be if LG's monitor app is also

collecting this type of information.

know that they make you agree that they

might harvest geoloccation data,

credentials, contacts, transactions,

things like this in various terms and

agreements on their website. Um, but the

monitor app would be the next major

concern. We think it's certainly

possible, especially considering LG's

history of improper data collection, and

we're already talking with a security

researcher about looking into that. Uh,

and we'll follow up with the PS, you

know, if we find something there. So,

uh, that being said, this is definitely

something we're interested in looking

into further for follow-ups. Uh, if you

happen to have any tips or leads for

broader LG investigations or looking

into TVs and monitors in general that do

this type of thing, email us at tips

tips psrs nexus.net. Um, and I don't

know, put LG in the title or the subject

or something so we can find it easily.

That's it for this one, though. Thanks

for watching. I don't know what I'm

going to do with this. Like, we could

just send it back. Maybe I should. Um,

It's I don't like buying things to do

content on and then sending them back.

It's like not really it's not how we

want to operate. You know, we bought it,

we got our use out of it, even though

it's not a normal use, but as a consumer

because I now own this thing. Normally,

we put it into service after that or we

keep it around for testing later. This I

I don't know if I want it in service. I

I really don't think I do cuz at some

point we're going to connect it to a

computer that we don't want that

software on which is all of them and

it's going to go on the computer and

it's going to become a concern for us.

So I I don't know I like I this is not

usable for me as a consumer. So I don't

know man I ethically I don't like

sending it back because it's like we got

our use but it's also not the intended

use of the product. Like I mean we're

basically doing what a consumer does.

Buy it. What the Ads and then send

it back, you know. So I don't know.

Maybe I will for this one. I don't

really It's just going to sit on a

shelf. But

that's it. Thanks for watching.

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