Court orders Samsung to stop "spying" on Texans through its TVs

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had filed lawsuits against Samsung and other TV manufacturers last month, alleging that they're spying on Texas residents through their TVs.

A preliminary relief has been granted, as a Temporary Restraining Order has been granted by the District Court, which stops Samsung from doing what it was doing.

The Texas Attorney General has filed the lawsuits against Samsung, LG, Hisense, Sony, and TCL. It was claimed that these manufacturers were using a technology called Automated Content Recognition on their TVs to collect users' personal data.

The technology works by capturing screenshots of whatever's on the TV screen every 500 milliseconds, and then sending that information to their servers and partners without users' consent.

The Temporary Restraining Order now blocks Samsung and all relevant parties working with the company from continuing to use, sell, transfer, collect, or share Automated Content Recognition data on Texas consumers.

A similar order has also been passed against Hisense by the District Court, and will likely be passed against all TV manufacturers that the state has sued, as these are preliminary proceedings which have no bearing on the actual merits of the case.

There will now be a hearing on January 9 where both parties will provide evidence on whether a temporary injunction should be issued pending the final decision in this lawsuit which is likely going to take some time. This temporary order will expire on January 19 unless the court extends it