Did you know that every time you turn on your smart TV, you invite invisible guests to watch together?
Recently, the most popular television models utilize Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), a form of advertising surveillance technology that collects information about everything you watch and send it to a centralized database. Manufacturers use data to identify viewing settings and enable them to deliver highly targeted ads.
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What are the incentives behind this invasive technology? In 2022, advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads, but those numbers have risen.
To understand how ACR works, imagine a constant, real-time Shazam-like service running in the background while the TV is on. Identifies content displayed on the screen, such as cable TV boxes, streaming services, and gaming consoles. ACR does this by capturing continuous screenshots and cross-referring them to a vast database of media content and ads.
According to MarkupACR can capture and identify up to 7,200 images per hour, or approximately 2 images per second. This extensive tracking can reveal the relationship between your audience’s personal information and your preferred content, providing marketers and content distributors with money-making insights. “Personal Information” means email address, IP address, or even physical road address.
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By understanding what your audience is watching and involved, marketers can make decisions about content recommendations to create a bespoke ad placement. You can also track ads that lead to purchases.
But the most disturbing part is the possibility of exploitation. The wrong move can lead to misuse or misuse sensitive information collected via the ACR, resulting in security risks and, in the worst case, identity theft.
Because ACR runs secretly in the background, many of us don’t recognize its active presence whenever we enjoy our favorite shows. Choosing to use ACRs is complicated and sometimes challenging. Navigating your TV settings may require dozens of clicks to better protect your privacy.
Like me, if you feel this feature gets in the way or is unsettling, there is a way to dismiss this data collection feature on your smart TV. While it may take patience, below is a how-tourist of five major brands showing how to turn off ACR.
How to turn off ACR on your smart TV
- Press house Remote control button.
- Go left to access the sidebar menu.
- In the sidebar menu, select Choosing your privacy option.
- Select Terms of Use, Privacy Policy option.
- Please check the check box for Viewing information services Not checked. This will turn off ACR and associated ad targeting.
- Select got it Options at the bottom of the screen to confirm changes.
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I also changed these six TV settings to significantly speed up the performance (and why they work)
- Press house A remote control button to access the home screen.
- Press setting Remote control button.
- [設定サイド]In the menu, select setting option.
- Go to and select General option.
- Select from the general menu system.
- Select Additional settings.
- In additional settings, find and toggle Live Plus option.
LG allows you to limit the ad tracking that you can find in additional settings.
- In the Additional Settings menu, select advertisement.
- Switch to Limit ad tracking option.
You can also turn off home promotions and content recommendations.
- In the Additional Settings menu, select Home Settings.
- Uncheck it Home Promotion option.
- Uncheck it Content recommendations option.
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- Press house A remote button to access the main menu.
- Go to and select setting.
- choose Initial setup.
- Scroll down to select Sunbi Interactive TV.
- Select Disable it Turning off Samba TV, Sony’s ACR technology.
Sony can also enhance privacy by disabling ad personalization.
- I’m going setting.
- Select About.
- choose advertisement.
- erase Advertising personalization.
As an extra step, you can completely disable Samba Services Manager. It is built into specific Sony Bravia TVS firmware as a third-party interactive app.
- I’m going setting.
- Select App.
- Select Samba Services Manager.
- choose Clear cache.
- Select Force Stop.
- Finally, select Disable it.
If your Sony TV is using Android TV, you should also turn off Chromecast data collection.
- Open the Google Home app on your smartphone.
- Tap menu icon.
- Select your TV from the list of devices.
- Tap the three dots in the top right corner.
- choose setting.
- erase Sends usage data and crash reports for your Chromecast device.
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- Press house A remote button to access the main menu.
- Go to and select setting.
- choose system.
- Select privacy.
- Find the option called Smart TV Experience, Viewing information servicesor similar.
- Turn this option off to disable ACR.
To disable personalized ads and opt out of content recommendations:
- In the Privacy menu, look for options such as: Ad Tracking or Interest-based advertising.
- Turn this option off.
- Find content recommendations or options related to personalized content.
- If you don’t want to suggest content to TV based on your viewing habits, disable these features.
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- Press house TCL TV remote control button.
- Go to and select setting On the main menu.
- Scroll down to select privacy option.
- search Smart TV Experience And choose it.
- Check or toggle options with labels Use information from TV input.
For additional privacy, TCL TV offers several more options. These can be found in all privacy menu:
- Select advertisement.
- choose Limit ad tracking.
- Again, I’ll select it advertisement.
- Uncheck Personalized ads.
- Now, select it in the Privacy menu microphone.
- Adjust Channel Microphone Access and Channel Allow as needed.
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While these steps significantly reduce data collection, don’t forget that they may also limit the smart features of your TV. We also recommend that you check these settings periodically to ensure they remain set. Revised settings may return to their default state, especially after software updates.
Also: How to clear TV cache (and why does it make a huge difference)
The driving force behind Smart TV targeted advertising is ACR technology, and its inclusion speaks volumes about manufacturers’ focus on monetizing user data rather than prioritizing consumer interest.
For most of us, ACR offers little concrete benefits, but sharing viewing habits and preferences in real time exposes us to the potential risk of privacy. By disabling ACR, you can keep your data to yourself and enjoy watching in peace.
