Apple has little incentives to do that, though? They make money from selling hardware and are able to charge a premium (more than they could making by stealing and selling private user information) because they have a reputation. It would be very unwise to compromise that for pennies.

LG and other consumer electronics manufacturers have tiny margins compared to Apple so that extra percent or two they can make from stuff like this is pretty big for them.

No, I don’t think they do. That’s why AppleTV is so expensive compared to a Roku.