TLDR
LG Smart TVs include a privacy control labeled “Do Not Sell My Personal Information.”
Here is the trick: if that switch is OFF, you have not opted out.
To tell LG not to sell or commercially share certain personal information, you have to turn “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” ON.
And that is the exact opposite of the other privacy controls on the same menu. With the surrounding tracking and advertising options, privacy means turning the switch OFF. Then LG suddenly flips the logic for the one setting involving the sale or sharing of personal information.
Gamers Nexus highlighted that the privacy-protecting opt-out was disabled by default on the LG televisions it examined. Consumer Reports and other privacy guides likewise tell LG owners they must activate the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” switch if they want the restriction applied. (consumerreports.org)
LG has never publicly admitted that it designed this interface specifically to confuse people.
It doesn’t need to.
It is ridiculous to believe a corporation sophisticated enough to build OLED televisions, webOS, Automatic Content Recognition, household advertising profiles, and a global ad-tech business somehow failed to notice that its most important privacy opt-out worked in the opposite direction from every other button around it.
That is not believable.
And when you put this backwards switch beside the rest of LG’s documented privacy design, the picture gets uglier.
Texas accused LG of using illegal dark patterns, including “Privacy Zuckering” and a “Roach Motel,” and alleged that consumers could consent broadly with one click but needed more than 40 clicks to completely undo the permissions later. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
This company knew how interfaces work.
It knew what it was doing.
LG’s “Do Not Sell” Switch Is Backwards
Imagine discovering that your television is capable of collecting viewing information and feeding a massive advertising ecosystem.
You open the privacy menu.
You want less tracking.
The process seems obvious.
Viewing Information?
OFF.
Interest-Based & Cross-Device Advertising?
OFF.
Voice Information?
OFF.
Home Promotion?
OFF.
Content Recommendations?
OFF.
Then you reach:
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
And the switch is OFF.
If you have been following the logic LG taught you throughout the rest of the menu, that looks right.
Everything invasive is off.
Except this time LG has reversed the rule.
For Do Not Sell My Personal Information, OFF means the privacy protection itself is disabled.
You have to turn the switch ON.
Consumer Reports specifically tells LG owners to navigate to the privacy settings and activate Do Not Sell My Personal Information in order to limit the commercial use of their data. (consumerreports.org)
Think about how absurd this is.
On the same privacy menu:
OFF = more privacy.
OFF = more privacy.
OFF = more privacy.
OFF = more privacy.
Then:
OFF = less privacy.
That is not merely bad wording.
It is a trap.
LG Reversed the Exact Interaction Pattern It Taught the User
This is what makes the design so indefensible.
A user interface teaches you how it works through repetition.
If every button around a particular setting follows one rule, the user learns that rule.
Want less data collection?
Turn things off.
Want fewer ads?
Turn things off.
Want less voice collection?
Turn things off.
Then the consumer reaches the setting with perhaps the most alarming name on the page:
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
And LG requires the opposite action.
Now you turn it on.
That means the customer has to notice the wording, stop following the visual pattern established by every other setting, mentally process the double negative, realize they are toggling the prohibition rather than the underlying behavior, and then reverse what they have been doing everywhere else.
If they don’t, LG gets the privacy-friendlier choice they failed to activate.
Convenient.
For LG.
Don’t Tell Me LG Didn’t Understand This
LG has not admitted:
“We deliberately inverted this switch to confuse people.”
Fine.
I don’t need an executive confession to form an opinion about what I’m looking at.
LG is not stupid.
This is one of the largest consumer-electronics companies in the world.
It builds televisions with millions of lines of software.
It develops webOS.
It operates sophisticated cloud services.
It runs Automatic Content Recognition systems capable of identifying viewing behavior at scale.
Its advertising business slices people into audiences based on apps, television programs, gaming, subscriptions, advertising exposure, location, viewing habits, and other behavior.
LG Ad Solutions talks openly about understanding “genuine human behavior.”
This company knows how people interact with technology.
It knows how people react to menus.
It knows what defaults do.
It knows what button labels do.
It knows what friction does.
Advertising companies obsess over this shit.
And we are supposed to believe nobody at LG noticed that its privacy menu trains users to turn everything off, except for the one particularly important control where privacy requires them to turn the switch on?
That explanation is ridiculous.
Maybe LG never wrote down the words “let’s trick people.”
I don’t care.
Someone named the setting.
Someone decided what ON meant.
Someone decided what OFF meant.
Someone selected the default.
Someone put it beside the other controls.
Someone tested the menu.
Someone approved it.
And LG shipped it.
It is unfathomable to believe they didn’t understand what they were doing.
Gamers Nexus Found the Do Not Sell Protection Off by Default
The 2026 Gamers Nexus investigation put renewed attention on this setting.
Reporting on the investigation says the researchers found Do Not Sell My Personal Information disabled by default on the tested LG television. (decrypt.co)
That creates a beautiful little obstacle course for the customer.
First, know that the setting exists.
Second, find it.
Third, understand what it means.
Fourth, realize that this one switch works in the opposite direction from the others around it.
Fifth, turn it on.
The default happens to favor LG.
The confusing wording happens to favor LG.
The inconsistent interface happens to favor LG.
Again, what an extraordinary series of coincidences.
This Could Have Been Designed Correctly in Five Seconds
Here is how a company genuinely obsessed with clarity could design the same setting:
Sell or Share My Personal Information
OFF
Done.
Or:
Allow Commercial Sharing of My Data
OFF
Done.
The privacy-preserving state is visually obvious.
It matches the rest of the menu.
It doesn’t force the user to solve a linguistic puzzle.
Instead LG chose:
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
OFF
That forces the customer to understand that OFF applies to the do-not-sell request, not to selling or sharing.
Technically logical.
Practically ridiculous.
And incredibly favorable to the company collecting the data.
Dark Patterns Don’t Need to Make Privacy Impossible
This is important.
A dark pattern doesn’t have to physically prevent a user from choosing privacy.
That would be too obvious.
A good dark pattern changes probabilities.
Make one choice easy.
Make the other choice annoying.
Make one choice visually intuitive.
Make the other require thought.
Make one the default.
Make the other something the customer has to discover.
Make the commercially valuable option frictionless.
Make the privacy option work differently from everything around it.
Then if regulators complain, say:
But the user always had a choice.
Yes.
A manipulated choice is still technically a choice.
That’s the whole point.
Texas Already Accused LG of Using Dark Patterns
This is not just an angry interpretation of one stupid toggle.
In December 2025, the Texas Attorney General sued LG over its Smart TV privacy practices.
The state’s complaint specifically accused LG of using dark patterns.
Texas used the terms:
Privacy Zuckering
and:
Roach Motel.
Privacy Zuckering describes interfaces that push users into giving away more personal information than they intended.
A Roach Motel is easy to enter and hard to escape.
And Texas had a pretty spectacular example.
One Click In. More Than 40 Clicks Out.
According to Texas’s complaint, LG made broad consent extremely easy during television setup.
The customer could hit Select All.
One convenient action could approve a pile of agreements at once.
Those agreements included things such as:
- Terms of Use
- Privacy Policy
- Viewing Information
- Voice Information
- Interest-Based & Cross-Device Advertising
- Marketing Communications
Then try to completely unwind those permissions later.
Texas alleged that fully opting back out required more than 40 clicks across multiple menus. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
One click to surrender privacy.
Forty-plus clicks to claw it back.
LG’s interface designers somehow understood simplicity perfectly when simplicity benefited LG.
Then privacy suddenly required a treasure map.
Again, we are supposed to believe nobody understood what was happening.
Please.
“Select All” Wasn’t Sitting in a Vacuum
Think about when LG presented these choices.
During setup.
The customer has just bought a television.
Maybe they unboxed a 65-inch or 77-inch OLED.
Maybe they mounted it on the wall.
They entered Wi-Fi passwords.
They configured HDMI inputs.
They installed updates.
They signed into apps.
They answered screen after screen after screen.
They want one thing.
To use the fucking television.
That is when LG offered a convenient way to approve everything.
Select All.
Consumer Reports has previously found that users frequently rush through smart-TV agreements because they simply want to finish setup and start using the television. It also found that many owners struggled to find privacy settings afterward. (consumerreports.org)
LG didn’t invent human impatience.
It simply built an interface that benefited from it.
LG Gave ACR the Harmless Name “Viewing Information”
Then there is the language.
Automatic Content Recognition can identify what appears on a television screen and generate commercially useful information about viewing behavior.
LG’s advertising company openly markets ACR information for targeting and measurement.
But the consumer-facing agreement was called:
Viewing Information.
Viewing Information sounds harmless.
It sounds like watch history.
Maybe recommendations.
Maybe remembering where you left off.
It doesn’t sound like:
Allow your television to recognize viewing behavior that has commercial value to an advertising company.
That’s much less friendly.
And that’s the problem with euphemisms.
They reduce resistance.
LG’s Advertising Business Shows Why This Data Matters
LG Ad Solutions is not shy when speaking to advertisers.
It describes first-party ACR information gathered “at the glass level.”
It markets targeting based on:
- programs
- movies
- streaming services
- applications
- subscriptions
- purchases
- rentals
- advertising exposure
- gaming behavior
- viewing habits
- location
It has discussed combining television behavior with demographic, location, shopping, CRM, and other behavioral information to create a more complete understanding of the consumer.
That is why the privacy interface matters.
This isn’t some pointless telemetry LG collects because engineers like databases.
The information has commercial value.
No Obvious “ACR Is Watching” Indicator
Texas also attacked the lack of an obvious persistent visual cue showing consumers that ACR was active. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
Phones show indicators when microphones or cameras are active.
Why?
Because invisible observation deserves visibility.
ACR is not literally the same as recording a conventional video of everything on screen. It generally creates fingerprints used to identify content.
But to the consumer, the meaningful fact is still:
The television is analyzing what is appearing on the screen.
If that functionality is active, why shouldn’t it be obvious?
Because invisible tracking is easier to forget about than visible tracking.
LG Scattered the Controls Around
Texas also criticized the way LG distributed privacy controls through menus rather than giving consumers one simple master privacy screen.
Users had to understand multiple concepts:
Viewing Information.
Interest-Based Advertising.
Cross-Device Advertising.
Voice Information.
Do Not Sell My Personal Information.
User Agreements.
Other model-specific settings.
That is ridiculous.
A privacy-first menu could look like this:
Privacy
ACR Tracking: OFF
Personalized Advertising: OFF
Cross-Device Advertising: OFF
Commercial Data Sharing: OFF
Voice Data Collection: OFF
Marketing Data: OFF
Done.
Instead people need guides from Consumer Reports to figure out how to stop their television from commercially profiling them.
That’s an indictment of the interface by itself.
Then LG Warned People When They Tried to Withdraw Consent
Texas’s complaint also showed that customers attempting to withdraw agreements could receive warnings about Smart TV functions becoming unavailable and the TV restarting.
Sometimes warnings are legitimate.
Turning off a service can disable a feature.
But again, look at the direction of the friction.
Accept everything?
Easy.
Select All.
Withdraw everything?
Menus.
Clicks.
Warnings.
Restarts.
Potential loss of functionality.
The consumer is repeatedly nudged toward the state that benefits the company.
At some point the pattern stops looking accidental.
Then Texas Sued
Texas didn’t merely write a stern letter about all of this.
It sued LG.
The state alleged that LG’s privacy interface was deceptive and that the company’s ACR practices violated consumer-protection law.
Then, in May 2026, LG settled.
Under the agreement, LG committed not to collect ACR viewing information without informed consent.
LG also agreed to provide clearer disclosure about how viewing information may be collected and used and provide consumers with a clear and simple way to opt out. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
Those three words are almost a summary of everything the old system got wrong:
Informed.
Clear.
Simple.
The settlement was not a trial verdict proving every allegation Texas made.
But the outcome speaks for itself.
Regulators attacked LG’s privacy design.
LG agreed to make disclosure and opting out clearer.
LG Now Says Optional Privacy Agreements Are Off by Default
LG has since emphasized that ACR, voice recognition, and interest-based advertising depend on optional consent.
Its current support documents say customers can change those selections under Privacy & Terms > User Agreements. (lg.com)
Consumer Reports likewise says current optional agreements including Viewing Information and Interest-Based & Cross-Device Advertising are off by default during setup. (consumerreports.org)
Good.
That is better.
It does not erase what came before.
And it does not make a Do Not Sell switch whose privacy-preserving state requires turning the control on any less stupid.
LG Didn’t Accidentally Forget How Buttons Work
This is where I land.
LG has not confessed to intentional deception.
I don’t need a confession to say the obvious.
LG knew how this interface worked.
It is ridiculous to believe otherwise.
The company knew that every other privacy-related switch on the menu taught the consumer that turning things off reduced tracking.
It knew the Do Not Sell setting reversed that pattern.
It knew the default state.
It knew the wording.
It knew the setting was buried.
It knew how easy Select All was.
It knew how difficult complete withdrawal was.
It knew consumers rush through television setup.
And it knew the behavioral information at issue had significant value to its advertising business.
LG is not incompetent.
That’s the whole reason the innocent-mistake theory is so ridiculous.
The same corporation that can build some of the most technically advanced televisions on Earth did not accidentally forget basic interface logic only when privacy was at stake.
The Other LG Dark Patterns
The backwards switch is the clearest symbol of the problem, but it is only one part of the larger system Texas attacked.
The Backwards “Do Not Sell” Control
Every surrounding privacy control teaches the customer to turn tracking-related features off.
Then Do Not Sell requires on.
The inconsistent design directly increases the chance that a customer trying to lock everything down leaves this protection disabled.
One Click In, 40+ Clicks Out
Texas alleged LG offered one-click broad consent while complete withdrawal took more than 40 interactions.
That is the classic Roach Motel.
Easy in.
Painful out.
“Select All”
Customers rushing through television setup could accept a stack of data and advertising agreements at once.
LG made maximum consent convenient.
“Viewing Information”
LG gave commercially valuable ACR collection an innocuous name that does not clearly communicate the scale and advertising value of the system.
Scattered Privacy Controls
Users had to hunt through multiple settings and agreements rather than being given one simple privacy dashboard.
Withdrawal Warnings
Users trying to withdraw consent could encounter warnings about lost Smart TV functionality and restarts.
No Persistent ACR Indicator
Texas alleged LG did not provide a clear continuing indicator showing when content-recognition functionality was active.
A Pattern Is Different From a Mistake
Any single bad interface choice can be an accident.
A confusing label?
Mistake.
A badly placed setting?
Mistake.
A poor default?
Mistake.
But look at the pattern.
The easy choice repeatedly increases LG’s access.
The difficult choice repeatedly increases the customer’s privacy.
The confusing setting repeatedly favors LG.
The default repeatedly favors LG.
The buried control favors LG.
The opt-out maze favors LG.
The misleadingly bland terminology favors LG.
At some point, continuing to call all of that accidental requires more credulity than simply acknowledging what is staring you in the face.
LG’s Backwards Switch Is a Perfect Symbol of the Whole Company’s Privacy Problem
The Do Not Sell My Personal Information switch looks like a tiny detail.
It isn’t.
It perfectly summarizes LG’s approach.
The company tells you privacy is available.
Technically.
You just have to know:
- which settings exist
- where they’re hidden
- which switches need to be off
- which one unexpectedly needs to be on
- what “Viewing Information” really means
- how ACR works
- which agreements are optional
- how to undo them
- which warning screens to ignore
- and whether anything else is still running
That’s not privacy by design.
That’s privacy by obstacle course.
And the obstacle course just happens to benefit the company that makes money when consumers give it more data.
LG has never publicly admitted that the backwards toggle was deliberately designed to trick customers.
Fine.
But pretending LG didn’t understand what it had built is ridiculous.
They knew exactly how that menu worked.
They knew exactly which direction every switch went.
And they knew exactly who benefited when someone got confused.
That’s why this isn’t merely bad UX.
It’s dark-pattern bullshit.
FAQs
Is “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” supposed to be on or off on an LG TV?
If you want to activate the do-not-sell restriction, the setting must be on. Consumer Reports specifically instructs LG owners to activate the toggle. (consumerreports.org)
Why is the LG Do Not Sell button confusing?
Because the other privacy and tracking controls surrounding it generally require users to turn features off to increase privacy. The Do Not Sell control reverses that interaction: users need to turn it on.
Was the Do Not Sell setting disabled by default?
Reporting on the 2026 Gamers Nexus investigation says the tested LG television had the Do Not Sell My Personal Information setting disabled by default. (decrypt.co)
Did Texas accuse LG of intentionally using dark patterns?
Texas’s 2025 lawsuit explicitly accused LG’s privacy system of using dark patterns and referred to practices including Privacy Zuckering and a Roach Motel. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
Did opting out really take more than 40 clicks?
Texas alleged that fully unwinding LG’s privacy permissions required more than 40 clicks through multiple menus compared with a one-click broad consent option during setup. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
Has LG changed its privacy system?
Yes. LG settled with Texas in May 2026 and agreed to stronger informed-consent disclosures and a clear and simple ACR opt-out. Current LG materials also say optional agreements can be declined. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
References
Texas Office of the Attorney General, State of Texas v. LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., Original Petition, December 2025. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
Texas Office of the Attorney General, Attorney General Ken Paxton Secures Major Agreement With LG to Protect Texans’ Privacy, May 11, 2026. (texasattorneygeneral.gov)
Consumer Reports, How to Turn Off Smart TV Snooping Features. (consumerreports.org)
Consumer Reports, We Asked TV Owners to Find Their Privacy Settings. Here’s What Happened. (consumerreports.org)
The Markup, Your Smart TV Knows What You’re Watching, December 12, 2023. (themarkup.org)
LG Electronics USA Support, How to Accept the Updated User Agreements on Your LG TV, September 2, 2026. (lg.com)
