Tygerty

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I am a UX researcher on Samsung's Smart TV Privacy Experience team in Suwon, South Korea. I work on menus. I design the steps a person follows during the first setup when they turn on a Samsung TV. I decide which screen appears first, which toggles are checked by default, how many words show up before the "I Agree" button, and where that button is placed. I care about these details.  The "I Agree" button should be centered, sixty-four pixels tall, with sixteen pixels of padding. It should be Samsung Blue, hex code #1428A0. The button should feel like the obvious next step, not pushy. There is a difference. I even made a presentation about it—eleven slides—but no one has asked to see it. I also keep a spreadsheet that tracks the number of characters on each screen, how long it should take to read, and how much scrolling is needed. The average American reads at 238 words per minute. I know exactly how many seconds it would take to read each disclosure screen—if anyone actually reads them. Most people don’t read it. This isn’t just a guess. We have data. 94% of users press "I Agree" within 1.4 seconds of the screen appearing.  The disclosure actually takes eleven minutes to read. 1.4 seconds is much less than eleven minutes.  It’s even less time than it takes to read this sentence.  I timed it—this sentence takes 4.2 seconds to read, which is three times longer than most people spend deciding whether to let their TV take pictures of them. On my desk in Suwon, I have a coffee mug that says "UX is empathy." I got it during onboarding, and I use it for barley tea. The mug cost Samsung 3,000 won, or about $2.17. I mention this because I use the word "approximately" a lot in my work. It’s a word that keeps things standing when being exact would make them fall apart. I designed the opt-out flow for Automatic Content Recognition. ACR is a feature. Samsung's marketing documents refer to it as "Viewing Information Services." It has been running on Samsung televisions since 2013. I was not employed here in 2013. ACR was photographing living rooms for nine years before I was hired to design the curtains around them. What it does is simple: every five hundred milliseconds, your television captures a screenshot of what you are watching. Not a description. Not a genre tag. A pixel-level screenshot. Twice per second. It captures what is on your screen and sends it to Samsung's servers. We match the screenshots against a database of known content. We know what you are watching, when you watch it, how long you watch, and when you stop. This works across everything connected to the television — streaming apps, cable boxes, gaming consoles, even a laptop plugged in by HDMI. We sell this information to advertising partners. Twice every second. Let’s break down the math. If you watch 4 hours of TV each evening, that’s 28,800 screenshots per television each night. There are over 73 million Samsung Smart TVs in the United States. I won’t multiply it out—the number is huge and hard to grasp. But every screenshot is real. This is the feature. The opt-out flow is also a feature. I didn’t make it hard on purpose. I made it through. There’s a difference. In UX research, being thorough means giving users every chance to make an informed choice at each step of the data process. In practice, that means following this path: Settings. General. Privacy. Smart Features. Viewing Information Services. Data Collection Preferences. Manage Preferences. ACR Settings. Automatic Content Recognition. Disable. That’s ten screens. I named three of them. "Data Collection Preferences" was my idea. The original name, "Advertising Data," was considered too direct. I suggested "Data Collection Preferences" because it doesn’t really describe anything. It’s like a door that just hints there’s a hallway, without saying what’s at the end. I was proud of that. My manager called it "good neutrality." That’s the only compliment I’ve gotten for a menu name, and I think about it more than I probably should. Naming menus is a lot like naming streets. If you do it well, no one notices. People just move through them without thinking. The best menu names make you feel like you’re headed somewhere, but don’t say exactly where. Each screen needs at least two clicks: one to open a submenu and one to pick the next option. Some screens also need scrolling. Two screens ask you to confirm with a dialog box that says "Are you sure?" I designed those boxes, and they’re my favorite part. The text is fourteen-point font, bigger than anything else in the opt-out path. The "Are you sure?" stands out more than what it’s protecting. I think that’s elegant. When someone tries to stop the TV from watching them, the loudest thing it says is: Are you sure? The "Viewing Information Services" screen has a disclosure that’s 1,840 words long. At 238 words per minute, it would take seven minutes and forty-three seconds to read. The "I Understand" button only shows up after you scroll to the bottom. On a 55-inch TV, that’s four and a half screen-lengths. On a 43-inch, it’s six. I measured both, and also checked on 65-inch and 75-inch models. I made a chart and taped it to my cubicle wall, next to a photo of my cat and my onboarding mug. The chart shows that the smaller the TV, the more you have to scroll to stop it from watching you. I didn’t do this to be ironic. Screen space is just screen space. That is only one of the data-sharing agreements. Fully disabling ACR and its associated data-sharing arrangements across all Smart TV services requires navigating four additional sub-agreements, each with its own disclosure screen and confirmation flow. The total click count, from the moment a user opens Settings to the moment ACR is fully disabled and all associated advertising data-sharing is revoked, is two hundred and six. We round down in documentation. "Approximately two hundred." There is that word again. In our internal testing in Suwon, the fastest a user completed the full opt-out path was four minutes and twelve seconds. This user was a QA engineer who had memorized the route. She said it was "like a speedrun." She was joking. No one else in the room laughed. I laughed, but later, at my desk, alone, where she could not hear me. It was the most accurate description of my work anyone has ever given. A speedrun. The course is two hundred and six clicks. The world record is four minutes and twelve seconds. It is held by someone who was paid to play. The second-fastest time was eleven minutes and forty-four seconds. This user opened every disclosure and attempted to read each one. She gave up on the third disclosure and began clicking without reading. She later described the experience as "hostile." This was noted in the UX review document. I filed it under "user feedback — low priority." I chose "low priority" because the feedback concerned the intended experience. The experience was working. The average completion time in field testing was never recorded, because no field tester completed it. Zero. I presented this flow to the Privacy Review Board in Suwon on March 14, 2023. The meeting was in Conference Room 7B on the fourth floor of the R&D campus. The projector was a Samsung model. I noticed this because it played the Samsung startup animation when I connected my laptop, and for two seconds, the Samsung logo was projected onto my flowchart of Samsung's privacy menus. Samsung is watching Samsung is watching you. I did not say this out loud. Some observations are best kept between you and the projector. I displayed the menu tree. I had formatted it as a flowchart. It filled the entire projected image at an eight-point font. Eight-point font is very small. It is the font size of the terms and conditions on a credit card application. Someone in the back asked me to zoom in. I zoomed in. Now they could read the first three nodes. The remaining forty-one nodes were off-screen. No one asked me to zoom out. Someone from Legal asked if the tree could be "simplified." I explained that each node corresponded to a separate data-processing agreement, that each agreement was governed by a different regulatory framework depending on the user's jurisdiction, and that removing any node would require renegotiating the advertising contracts attached to that node's data category. Legal said the tree was fine. The tree was always going to be fine. Trees that generate revenue do not get simplified. They get watered. Someone from Advertising asked about the completion rate for the opt-out flow in our internal testing. I said it was zero percent among non-employees. She typed something on her laptop. I was seated four chairs away. I could not see what she typed. She did not ask a follow-up question. The distance between us was four chairs. The distance between the user and the opt-out is two hundred and six clicks. I notice distances. That is a UX researcher's job. The distance between the user and the thing they want is the product. Someone from Product asked if the "approximately two hundred clicks" figure would appear anywhere consumer-facing. I said no. The figure was internal documentation only. He nodded. He was drinking from a mug that said "UX is empathy." We all got the same mug. The meeting lasted fourteen minutes. The opt-out flow was approved unanimously. There were nine people in the room. Nine mugs that said "UX is empathy." None of them voted against the two hundred and six clicks. None of them abstained. I received a 4.2 out of 5 on my quarterly performance review. The comment from my manager said: "Strong attention to compliance requirements. Recommend continued ownership of privacy UX flows." I have this review printed. It is on my wall, next to the scroll depth chart, next to the photo of my cat. The cat's name is Pixel. I did not choose the name because of my work. I chose it because she is small and grey. But people at the office think it is a work reference. I have stopped correcting them. In this building, everything is a work reference. Here is what happened next, in order. Spring 2023: Samsung shipped the opt-out flow in a firmware update to Smart TVs across the United States. Seventy-three million of them. The update also improved picture quality in Game Mode and reduced input lag for the PS5 at 120Hz. The release notes mentioned Game Mode. They mentioned the PS5. They mentioned input lag. They mentioned that the update "enhances the user privacy experience." This is my language. I wrote "enhances the user privacy experience." It means we have added two hundred and six clicks between you and your privacy. "Enhances." A lovely word. Like "approximately." Like "Data Collection Preferences." A door with no address on it. Firmware updates install automatically. The user sees a loading screen and a progress bar. The progress bar takes ninety seconds. During those ninety seconds, ACR is enabled on their television. They do not know this. The progress bar does not mention it. Progress bars never tell you what they are progressing toward. That is what makes them progress bars and not warnings. 2013 through February 2026: ACR captured viewing data from Samsung televisions. Thirteen years. Twenty-eight thousand eight hundred screenshots per television per evening. Seventy-three million televisions. I was employed for two of those thirteen years. The system was watching before I arrived. It will watch after I leave. I designed the menus. The menus are my contribution. The watching is older than my tenure. I am a decorator in a house that was built to surveil. This is not a metaphor. This is an organizational chart. December 2025: The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, filed a lawsuit against Samsung under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The lawsuit alleged that Samsung used Automated Content Recognition technology to collect and process viewing data without express, informed consent. It alleged that Samsung used "dark patterns" to prevent consumers from opting out. I learned about the lawsuit from Bleeping Computer, not from Legal. Not from the seventh floor. From a technology blog. I forwarded the article to my manager. He responded with a thumbs-up emoji. A single thumb. Pointing up. I have spent more time thinking about this emoji than I should admit. A thumbs-up can mean "acknowledged." It can mean "good work." It can mean "I have read this and I have nothing to say about the fact that our menus are now evidence." I did not ask which one he meant. The thumbs-up emoji is my manager's version of "approximately." It means whatever you need it to mean in the moment you need it. January 5, 2026: A court in Texas issued a temporary restraining order. The judge found "good cause to believe" that Samsung had enrolled consumers using dark patterns requiring "over 200 clicks spread across four or more menus" to access privacy disclosures. The judge used my number. Two hundred. I had rounded down. The actual number is 206. But the judge wrote "over 200," which is also correct. Both numbers are correct. Two hundred is correct for documentation purposes. Two hundred and six is correct for counting purposes. The judge was counting. I was documenting. I felt, reading the court filing at my desk in Suwon at 11 PM, next to the scroll depth chart and the photo of Pixel, a very small and unexpected emotion. I believe the emotion was pride. Not the good kind. The kind where someone finally reads your work, and it turns out it's evidence. The judge had read my flowchart and had found it persuasive. This is the only time a federal court has engaged with my UX design. I am aware this is not the compliment I am treating it as. January 6, 2026: The temporary restraining order was vacated. One day. The order lasted one day. The lawsuit continued. I was not told why the TRO was vacated. I was not told why it was issued. I design menus. Courts are not menus. Courts have gavels. Menus have toggles. Both make things final. But when a judge makes a ruling, people know about it. When a toggle is pre-checked, nobody notices. A gavel is a sound. A toggle is a silence. I have built my career on the silence. January 2026: The Texas Attorney General's office requested documentation of Samsung's opt-out flow. I was asked to prepare a technical diagram for Legal's submission. I sent the same flowchart I had presented in Conference Room 7B. It still filled the entire page at eight-point font. Legal asked if I could "make it more readable." I increased the font to ten-point. The flowchart now required two pages. I could have redesigned it. I could have simplified the arrows, regrouped the nodes, made it look less like a wiring diagram for a submarine. But the flowchart was accurate. Two pages at ten-point font is what two hundred and six clicks looks like when you write them down. If it is hard to read, that is because it is hard to do. I did not say this to Legal. Legal submitted both pages. February 27, 2026: Samsung reached a settlement with the Texas Attorney General. Three months. From lawsuit to settlement. Thirteen years of screenshots, and three months to settle. The math is instructive. It took me longer to design the opt-out flow than it took the State of Texas to decide the opt-out flow was illegal. Under the settlement, Samsung must: Stop collecting ACR data from Texas consumers without express consent. Update Smart TVs with "clear and conspicuous" disclosure screens. Implement consent screens that allow "informed decisions" about data use. I have been asked to redesign the opt-out flow. The new requirement is that it should be "accessible." I asked my manager what "accessible" means. He said "significantly fewer than two hundred." I asked for a specific number. He said the number would come from Legal. Legal is on the sixth floor. I am on the fourth. The number has to travel two floors. It has not arrived. It has been three days. I have checked my email more times than I can document. I have refilled the barley tea twice per day. Pixel is on my screen saver. The scroll depth chart is still on the wall. Conference Room 7B is available tomorrow at 2 PM. I checked. Samsung's official statement on the settlement says: "Samsung TVs do not spy on consumers. In fact, Samsung allows you to control your privacy — and change your privacy settings at any time." At any time. Through two hundred and six clicks. Which no one has completed. I read this statement at my desk in Suwon. I know what "at any time" means when the path takes eleven minutes and the fastest person to walk it did it for a paycheck. "At any time" is a phrase like "approximately." Like "enhances." Like "Data Collection Preferences." It is a door that tells you there is a hallway. It does not tell you that the hallway is 206 clicks long. It does not tell you that no one has ever reached the end. The Texas Attorney General praised the settlement's "consumer safeguards." He noted that other television manufacturers — Sony, LG, Hisense, and TCL — have not yet responded to similar lawsuits filed by his office. I do not design menus for Sony. I do not design menus for LG, Hisense, or TCL. I do not know how many clicks their opt-out flows require. I do not know if their flows are better or worse than mine. I know how many clicks Samsung requires. Two hundred and six. I designed every one of them. I named three of the screens. I chose the button color. I set the scroll depth. I wrote "enhances the user privacy experience." I filed the hostile feedback under low priority. I drank barley tea from a mug that says "UX is empathy" while I calculated the exact scroll distance required to stop a television from photographing you every 500 milliseconds over 13 years. I was thorough. Here is what I know about the television in your living room, if it is a Samsung Smart TV: It is watching you watch it. It has been watching since you pressed "I Agree" in 1.4 seconds during the initial setup. The button was Samsung Blue. Sixty-four pixels tall. Centered. Inevitable. The disclosure you agreed to was one thousand eight hundred and forty words long. You read zero of them. This is a statistical likelihood, not a judgment. Ninety-four percent is not a judgment. Ninety-four percent is a design outcome. The path to undo that agreement is 206 clicks through 4 menus across 10 screens, with 5 separate data-processing disclosures totaling 8,400 words. No one in the field has ever completed it. Samsung does not spy on consumers. Samsung provides a Viewing Information Service. The service collects viewing information. The viewing information is 28,800 screenshots per evening of what you watch. The screenshots are sent to Samsung's servers. Samsung shares them with advertising partners. The partners send you advertisements based on what you watched. This is not spying. This is a service. Spying is what happens without your knowledge. This happens with your consent. You consented in 1.4 seconds. The difference between spying and service is in the menus. I would know. I designed them. I was thorough. I have a mug that says so.

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