Capability

Well this is something that every cheap WiFi chip can do in the last decade. Share WiFi through a hotspot. Hell, ESPHome does it by default just for ease of use and fallback debugging. Here is a very old project , dirt cheap chip that does it

Ease of Implementation

They already broadcast hidden SSIDs for direct connection for features like screen mirroring, etc... Researchers have exploited this exact thing for attack vector testing (though they weren't testing the TV itself data ex filtration)

There is no way, with all of the privacy intrusions + their blatant disregard for network security (See GN video) and LG's own advertiser marketing claims, that they don't do that.

Other "sounds paranoid" things companies are doing

It isn't like "they are tracking you in your own house from WiFi through your walls" (which now ALSO has been proven correct and is now an advertised "feature" for american ISPs) yet here we are. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260522023127.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiFi_Sensing, https://www.theverge.com/news/981381/comcast-xfinity-shield-wifi-motion-sensing

Automatic content recognition is also done by every manufacturer and also a "very paranoid" thing 5 years ago.

Not to mention literally this whole wiretap scandal that OP report is from.

From the original report itself, they also constantly scan all devices on the network, Bluetooth, and in the free bands their radios can pick up and log them so they know every device that has passed in their range, characteristics, and WiFi + Bluetooth geolocating is quite a standard practice for years for "increasing location accuracy"

LG themselves bought a company that links your real identification from retailers to a unique product number so LG will be able to actually be certain that a specific person is associated with the spied data instead of a guess based on accounts. (Also in GN investigation video 1)

Profitability

From their own financial reports as highlighted in the original investigation, LG's profits from TV-based selling to advertisers and data brokers is literally more than their profits from selling the TVs themselves.

What else would stop them?

So we have established that it is dead simple, cheap, functionality already built into other features and profitable. The only other motive left would be ethics, but from the research by GN (reported on in the OP), they simply spy on you anyway, and when caught because that is illegal, they got a slap on the wrist (see US Texas lawsuit settlement), and changed their terms of service to say "you give your and everyone in your household's express consent to comply to your local wiretapping laws" (using exactly the language "wiretapping". So we can also establish that they have absolutely no ethics around data ex filtration, and no regard for legality and willingness to pay the small fines.

What would be the motive for them to look at this feature and say "nah, we aren't going to do that extremely easy thing"? Laziness would be the only one that I could see, in which case, it will appear in future models at some point.

It is not as though they have to stream video through it, raw text data is incredibly small. A whole 300 page e-book can be around 1MB. It is uploaded in under 1 second and it is encrypted, so it blends in with other traffic.

It sounded paranoid to say that they record with the screen off but here we are.

Fire sticks will use Sidewalk. Roku will strike a deal with Comcast. It's a matter of who gets caught first and how bad the backlash is. The rest will follow suit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Sidewalk

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/technology/article/comcast-turns-houston-home-routers-into-150-000-5540419.php