TLDR
Here is the frustrating truth about LG: the company makes some damn good televisions.
LG’s OLED hardware deserves much of its reputation. Independent testing of models such as the G5 shows excellent blacks, strong HDR brightness, impressive color, fast response times, good processing, and serious gaming performance. RTINGS calls the G5 an incredible all-around television and says it delivers excellent picture quality across movies, sports, gaming, dark rooms, and bright rooms.
And none of that excuses webOS becoming an advertising and data platform.
A great OLED panel does not justify ACR tracking.
Perfect blacks do not justify home-screen ads.
Excellent HDR does not justify a television crawling the LAN.
A 165Hz gaming mode does not make creepy privacy controls acceptable.
Dolby Vision is not compensation for a backwards Do Not Sell toggle.
LG’s hardware engineering may be excellent. Its smart-TV philosophy is still rotten.
The tragedy is that the first part makes the second part harder for consumers to walk away from.
I Like LG OLEDs. That Makes Me Angrier, Not More Forgiving.
It would be easier to attack LG if its televisions were garbage.
They are not.
LG has been one of the companies that helped make OLED mainstream in premium televisions. Its better sets combine the basic strengths people love about OLED, perfect blacks, per-pixel lighting, excellent contrast, near-instant response times, with increasingly impressive brightness and gaming capabilities.
Take the G5.
RTINGS found that its primary RGB tandem OLED panel produces excellent brightness and color, while the TV supports HDMI 2.1 across four ports, VRR, 4K at up to 165Hz, Dolby Vision, and LG’s Game Optimizer features. The review praises its dark-room picture, bright-room performance, upscaling, HDR, and overall versatility.
That is real engineering.
And it deserves credit.
The problem is that LG seems determined to take that impressive display hardware and bolt an ad-tech company to the back of it.
A Great Panel Does Not Cancel Out a Bad Platform
TV enthusiasts often treat picture quality as though it is the only thing that matters.
It isn’t anymore.
When televisions were mostly passive displays, evaluating the panel made sense.
Modern Smart TVs are software products.
The operating system matters.
Privacy matters.
Security matters.
Software support matters.
Advertising matters.
Network behavior matters.
A television can have the best black levels on Earth and still be an obnoxious product if the operating system treats the owner like advertising inventory.
That is where LG has lost me.
webOS Became Part of the Deal Whether Enthusiasts Like It or Not
The common enthusiast response is:
“Just ignore webOS.”
That is not always a satisfying answer.
Yes, you can connect an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, game console, cable box, or another streaming device and use the LG largely as a panel.
That can reduce how much you interact with LG’s interface.
But webOS is still installed.
LG still controls firmware.
The television still contains connected features.
The privacy and software architecture remains part of the product.
And for normal customers who buy a Smart TV precisely because they want integrated streaming apps, webOS is not some optional curiosity.
It is the television.
That means LG deserves to be judged on it as seriously as it is judged on color accuracy.
LG’s Advertising Operation Is Not Some Tiny Side Business
This is the part television reviews too often treat as background noise.
LG has an entire advertising operation built around connected television.
LG Ad Solutions says its proprietary ACR technology captures viewing behavior across LG Smart TVs. Its technology page describes first-party data “at the glass level” and markets audience categories involving content, streaming services, subscriptions, purchases, rentals, advertisements viewed, gaming, viewing habits, and location.
That is an extraordinary amount of advertising intelligence tied to a device people think of primarily as a display.
The OLED panel is what brings the customer through the door.
The smart-TV platform creates a continuing commercial relationship afterward.
That is the problem.
LG Even Sells the Home Screen
LG Ad Solutions openly promotes premium placements on the LG home screen.
Its advertiser-facing material describes interactive advertisements integrated into the Smart TV experience. The company also promotes cross-device campaigns and tells marketers to “Own the living room” by reaching the connected LG household beyond the TV across mobile, tablet, and desktop devices.
That is a profoundly different philosophy from the one many premium-TV buyers think they are paying for.
A consumer thinks:
I bought an expensive screen because I care about picture quality.
LG’s advertising operation thinks:
Excellent. Now we have a premium screen in the largest room in the house.
Those incentives are not aligned.
If I Pay Premium Money, Stop Selling My Screen to Advertisers
This is where LG loses any benefit of the doubt from me.
Advertising may be defensible on heavily subsidized hardware.
If LG wants to offer a $250 television that would otherwise cost $500 and clearly tells buyers that the discount is funded by advertising, that is at least an honest transaction.
Premium OLEDs are different.
Consumers spend serious money on them.
The G5 was a flagship product. The G-series line is positioned as premium hardware. The customer has already paid LG for the engineering, panel, processor, design, and profit margin.
Why should LG then retain the right to use the home screen as premium advertising inventory?
At what point does the company say:
This customer already paid us enough.
Apparently never.
The Better the OLED Gets, the More Absurd the Ads Become
LG’s display engineers are solving difficult problems.
Brightness.
Color volume.
Reflection handling.
Image processing.
Near-black performance.
Refresh rates.
Upscaling.
Meanwhile the software side of the company apparently asks:
Can we put another ad on the home screen?
That contrast is maddening.
RTINGS’ testing of the G5 illustrates the level of engineering involved. It found excellent HDR brightness, superb blacks, very strong colors, impressive reflection handling, and top-tier gaming capabilities.
Then the customer turns that magnificent display on and enters an operating system designed partly around commercial placements.
It is like buying a Porsche and discovering that the digital dashboard occasionally wants to sell you McDonald’s.
The problem is not that the advertisement destroys the car.
The problem is that somebody thought it was acceptable.
ACR Is Particularly Offensive on a Premium Display
Automatic Content Recognition is where the distinction between hardware excellence and software abuse becomes impossible to ignore.
LG says current ACR is optional, off by default, and requires acceptance of its Viewing Information Agreement. It also says interest-based and cross-device advertising require separate consent.
Those are positive safeguards.
But the reason LG has ACR is also clear.
LG Ad Solutions markets ACR-derived viewing information as a valuable advertising asset. It says the technology can identify viewing behavior from supported content and create audiences based on everything from subscriptions to game titles and advertisement exposure.
Why should the display manufacturer be in that business at all?
I bought the television because OLED pixels can turn completely off and produce perfect blacks.
I did not buy it because I wanted the manufacturer to understand whether I am an ad skipper, cord cutter, app loyalist, heavy viewer, gamer, or premium-streaming subscriber.
Those are LG Ad Solutions’ categories.
Not mine.
Texas Had to Get Involved
Current LG privacy protections also need historical context.
Texas sued LG over its ACR practices and subsequently reached an agreement requiring informed consent before ACR viewing-data collection, clearer disclosures, and an easier opt-out.
Again, that settlement does not mean every Texas allegation was adjudicated and proven.
It does mean regulators thought the privacy practices warranted intervention, and the result included stronger consumer protections.
That history matters.
A company selling premium hardware should be ahead of regulators on privacy.
Not negotiating improvements after the Attorney General shows up.
Then There Is the Backwards Privacy Logic
LG’s privacy interface has also included one of the dumbest pieces of UX imaginable.
The Do Not Sell My Personal Information option has to be turned on to activate the privacy protection.
That is grammatically defensible and ergonomically stupid.
The surrounding privacy controls teach users that disabling optional tracking or advertising increases privacy.
Then one of the most important privacy settings reverses the logic.
LG has not admitted it deliberately designed the interface to fool people.
I think it is ridiculous to believe a company this sophisticated did not understand the effect.
LG’s engineers can design an OLED stack capable of extraordinary picture quality, but somehow the company could not figure out how to make Don’t commercially share my data an obvious OFF switch?
Please.
Network Scanning Is Not a Premium Feature I Asked For
The Gamers Nexus and Level1Techs investigation also found LG TVs scanning local networks for other devices.
Ars Technica reported that an LG G5 discovered dozens of unrelated devices, including smartphones and smartwatches belonging to people unaware of the test.
LG says device discovery exists for legitimate connectivity features and is not used for advertising segmentation or household profiling.
Fair enough.
I still don’t like the scope.
When I connect an Xbox to my television, the television needs to understand the Xbox.
It does not need a general curiosity about everything else living on the network.
Premium hardware should come with premium restraint.
Security Has to Be Part of Picture Quality Now
That sounds ridiculous, but it is true.
A television is now a computer.
Security quality therefore becomes part of product quality.
LG’s own current privacy statement acknowledges this. The company says no connected product is completely immune from vulnerabilities, points to its bug bounty program, and says eligible products currently receive security updates for up to five years from the original release of the relevant webOS platform version.
Five years may sound reasonable for software.
A premium television can easily remain in service for eight, ten, or more.
That means buyers should start asking a question TV reviewers rarely emphasized fifteen years ago:
How long will this screen remain safe to connect to the internet?
That’s webOS’s fault, not OLED’s.
But both arrive in the same box.
LG’s Privacy Response Is Better Than Silence, but It Is Also Revealing
LG deserves some credit for publishing a detailed September 2026 response.
The company directly addresses ambient-audio allegations, ACR, device discovery, Wi-Fi information, advertising, data sharing, user choice, and security.
That is more useful than vague corporate PR.
But the statement also reveals the enormous complexity of the platform.
This premium television can involve:
- ACR;
- voice recognition;
- wake-word processing;
- HDMI source information;
- device discovery;
- nearby Wi-Fi processing;
- approximate-location estimation;
- audience segmentation;
- advertising agreements;
- cross-device advertising;
- third-party service providers;
- security updates.
At some point you have to ask whether the television became too smart for the consumer’s own good.
Enthusiasts Should Be the People Most Angry About This
TV enthusiasts often know enough to work around the platform.
They disable settings.
Use external streamers.
Block domains.
Run Pi-hole.
Put IoT devices on VLANs.
Avoid the home screen.
That can create the impression that none of this matters.
I think the opposite.
Enthusiasts should be more irritated because they understand how unnecessary the bad parts are.
None of LG’s advertising machinery improves black levels.
ACR does not increase HDR brightness.
Household targeting does not improve motion handling.
Cross-device advertising does not reduce input latency.
Home-screen ads do not improve image processing.
Those are separate business decisions grafted onto excellent hardware.
We should judge them separately.
I Want an LG OLED With the Advertising Company Removed
That is basically my ideal product.
Give me LG’s panel.
Give me the image processor.
Give me HDMI 2.1.
Give me VRR.
Give me Dolby Vision.
Give me 4K high-refresh-rate support.
Give me firmware updates that fix actual display and security problems.
Then strip out the rest.
No home-screen ads.
No ACR unless I explicitly install or enable it.
No cross-device advertising.
No behavioral audience segmentation.
No creepy household language.
No “Own the living room.”
Just a premium television.
LG is technically capable of making that product.
The reason it does not is economic, not technical.
Great Hardware Can Hide Rotten Incentives
This is the larger lesson.
Technology reviewers often separate hardware and software because it makes testing easier.
Consumers cannot.
The whole product matters.
A television with excellent image quality and a terrible operating philosophy is still compromised as a consumer product.
The OLED panel may be best-in-class.
If the platform treats the screen as advertising inventory and the viewer as a data source, that deserves to reduce the overall verdict.
Not because picture quality stopped mattering.
Because ownership matters too.
The Panel Engineers Deserve Better Than This
There is something almost unfair about how good LG’s hardware can be.
Teams of engineers spend years making OLED brighter, more efficient, more accurate, and more durable.
Then the ad-tech side takes that beautiful panel and sees a larger, brighter surface for commercial engagement.
That is depressing.
LG should be proud enough of the hardware to sell the hardware.
It should not need to turn the customer relationship into a permanent advertising opportunity.
A company that truly believes in its premium products should be able to say:
You paid for it. Enjoy it. We will support it and otherwise stay out of your way.
That would be a premium experience.
LG’s Great OLEDs Make Its Smart-TV Behavior Less Excusable
There is a temptation to excuse all of this because the television looks so good.
I think that gets the relationship backwards.
LG has enough technical talent, brand strength, and hardware quality that it has less excuse for anti-consumer behavior.
This is not a desperate no-name TV manufacturer trying to make $8 of profit on a bargain-bin panel.
LG sells premium products.
It has a globally recognized brand.
Its OLED televisions routinely compete among the best displays consumers can buy.
That is exactly why the company should behave better.
I Can Admire the OLED and Despise the Platform
Those positions are not contradictory.
LG makes great OLED televisions.
LG has also built a smart-TV advertising ecosystem I consider rotten.
Both can be true.
The G5 can have incredible blacks and a privacy problem.
webOS can be convenient and overly commercialized.
ACR can be technologically impressive and still represent an invasive business capability.
The company can improve current consent controls and still deserve criticism for the behavior that led to regulatory intervention.
We do not have to choose between pretending LG is incapable of good engineering and pretending the good engineering excuses everything else.
The Best LG Television Would Be One That Actually Belonged to Its Owner
That is the product I want.
A premium OLED where the software behaves like part of the television rather than a commercial relationship with the manufacturer.
A home screen that belongs to the customer.
Privacy controls that require no tutorial.
No advertisements unless the owner chooses an ad-supported service.
Minimal network discovery.
Long-term security support.
No behavioral tracking enabled by default.
No euphemistic agreements.
No feeling that the manufacturer still has a financial claim on the screen after taking your money.
LG already knows how to build the difficult part.
The panel is excellent.
Now it needs to fix the rotten part wrapped around it.
Until then, every beautiful LG OLED comes with an unfortunate reminder:
The best thing about the television is the part that would work perfectly well without LG’s advertising business attached to it.
References
RTINGS, LG G5 OLED Review. Independent testing of LG’s premium OLED hardware, including picture quality, brightness, black levels, gaming, processing, and HDR performance.
Read the RTINGS LG G5 OLED review
RTINGS, LG G5 vs. C5 OLED. Current comparison illustrating the strength of LG’s higher-end OLED hardware.
Read the G5 vs. C5 comparison
LG Electronics, “Understanding Privacy on LG Smart TVs,” September 12, 2026. LG’s current explanation of ACR, device discovery, advertising, voice processing, security support, and privacy controls.
Read LG’s privacy statement
LG Ad Solutions, “Trusted ACR Technology.” LG’s advertiser-facing description of first-party glass-level viewing information and audience segmentation.
Read LG Ad Solutions’ ACR technology page
LG Ad Solutions, “Superior Solutions for Performance Advertisers.” LG’s sales material covering home-screen advertising, ACR, cross-device advertising, and “Own the living room.”
Read LG Ad Solutions’ advertising pitch
Texas Office of the Attorney General, LG privacy agreement, May 11, 2026. Documents LG’s agreement to stronger informed-consent, disclosure, and opt-out requirements for ACR viewing data.
Read the Texas-LG privacy agreement
Ars Technica, “LG TV shown scanning LAN for third-party phones and other devices,” September 8, 2026. Independent reporting on the Gamers Nexus and Level1Techs findings.
Read the Ars Technica report