Samsung blocks Smart TV apps which secretly share users’ internet connections

Samsung Electronics has begun removing Smart TV applications that secretly allow third parties to use customers’ home internet connections, following growing concerns over privacy, cybersecurity and the misuse of residential internet networks for AI data collection.

This move comes after security researchers discovered that hundreds of Smart TV applications contained hidden residential proxy software development kits (SDKs) which enable users’ internet connections to be rented out to external parties with limited user awareness.

According to reports, the affected applications appeared to be harmless utilities such as games, digital clocks, aquarium screensavers, and file management tools. However, embedded within many of them was software that could turn a Smart TV into a residential proxy, thereby allowing external companies to route internet traffic through a user’s home network.

Samsung’s action follows a broader industry review after researchers found similar software across both Samsung’s Tizen platform and LG’s webOS ecosystem. Electronic Time, a Korean technology publication, reported that Samsung and LG have started blocking or removing applications containing the proxy SDKs from their respective app stores.

The residential proxy technology is commonly used by companies that collect publicly available internet data for purposes including market intelligence, price monitoring and training artificial intelligence models.

This is because requests originate from real household internet connections rather than data centres; hence, they are less likely to be blocked by websites.

Spur Intelligence found that 34.1 percent of analysed smart TV apps contained residential proxy software, with platform breakdowns showing 42.5 percent on LG webOS and 26.9 percent on Samsung Tizen. These embedded SDKs route third-party web traffic through consumer home internet connections.

The study found that 26.9 percent of Samsung Tizen apps and 42.5 percent of LG webOS apps included the technology. Major SDK providers identified included Bright Data, Massive, and Oxylabs.

Many of the applications sought user consent through prompts asking whether users preferred to watch advertisements or instead share a portion of their device’s network resources. However, many consumers were unlikely to understand that agreeing could allow strangers’ internet traffic to pass through their home connections.

The practice could expose users to reputational risks if their home IP addresses were linked to suspicious online activities. Researchers also found weaknesses in some proxy implementations, including insufficient authentication mechanisms that could increase security risks.

The issue has drawn increased attention as demand for residential proxy networks grows alongside the rapid expansion of generative AI. Companies developing AI models rely heavily on web scraping to gather publicly available data, making residential IP addresses particularly valuable because they are less likely to trigger anti-bot protections than commercial data centres.

Samsung has not indicated how many applications have been removed, but the company’s latest action signals a stricter approach to monitoring third-party applications distributed through its Smart TV platform.