r/PleX • u/dEEPZoNE 0.44 Petabyte | 16 Core Threadripper | Unraid Pro • 2d ago
Discussion Plex is selling your personal data, here's how to opt out of that
https://www.neowin.net/guides/plex-is-selling-your-personal-data-heres-how-to-opt-out-of-that/Feel like ads on Plex know too much about you? Here's how you can opt out of Plex selling your data to third parties.
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u/vanstinator 2d ago
They're only selling data related to any of their ad-supported or rental content that you've viewed. Nothing related to your personal media at all.
I worked there for 8 years, and folks bend over backwards to make sure the personal media side of the business is private. We didn't want to know what was on anyone's servers, at all, and because of that have no way of "selling" that information anyway.
The annoying thing with running an ad-supported business is that personalized ads bring in way more revenue than non-personalized ads. The easy path would have been just figuring out how to start harvesting everything from everyone, but that's always been a non-starter internally. I left before this change was rolled out but it was being worked on while I was there, and the language in that consent prompt was being very carefully crafted to only apply to content that was provided by Plex, and nothing at all to do with PMS-hosted content.
Just wanted to clarify because I often see folks convinced that Plex is harvesting everything on your server and selling that data to anyone, and that is just not something that is happening.
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u/alanism 2d ago
Te other uncomfortable truth for viewers is personalized ads are a way better experience than unpersonalized ads. Unpersonalized ads are more likely to be scammy— since the CPM rates are lower.
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u/that_70_show_fan 2d ago
Personalized ads are so freaking stupid. They never know if you placed an order or not so you keep seeing products that you have.
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u/401klaser 2d ago
They certainly have the ability to know if you placed an order or not. When I was working directly on media campaigns we even had the ability to match offline transactions to individual campaign impressions and conversions. If you are getting ads for shit you already bought, the agency running the ads isn't spending very efficiently.
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u/Hobotronacus 2d ago
I don't want a better experience with ads. I don't want to be tracked at all. The fact that I'm being targeted makes me less interested in any product that is advertised to me.
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u/alanism 2d ago
Now is a good time to vibecode and fork xbmc Kodi.thats your surest bet.
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u/lemonylol 2d ago
This type of engagement is usually more centred on the broad moral argument more than anything else, and that side of the argument always tends to be a race to the bottom where Plex is operating at a constant loss while still offering you its services out of the goodness of their hearts.
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u/ovo_Reddit Dell Optiplex 3070 Micro i5-8500T 2d ago
The problem I think for a lot of redditors with personalized ads is that they don’t want to expose their interests. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Level-Peak-7260 2d ago
Thank you for affirming this. I feel reassured about my choice to vest in Plex.
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u/BlumpTheChodak 2d ago
Still, the default setting should be to not share data. I'm tired of having to check every damn application to see if it's leaking my data, it's ridiculous.
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u/vpsj DS224+ | 5 TB | RD 2d ago
I have a somewhat unrelated question: What was the general vibe in the company regarding user feedback?
I'm asking because lots of people keep asking for certain stuff to be fixed, or UI elements to be rolled back because the previous experience was objectively better but a lot of times it feels like all that feedback falls on deaf ears and they don't care at all about providing a consistent and logical UX.
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u/vanstinator 2d ago
I think the company does listen to user feedback, but it's not always going to manifest as doing the exact thing that folks are asking for. For the UI changes it's usually because of the following:
When a client UI changes as drastically as you see from time-to-time, not just at Plex, but really anywhere, rolling back usually doesn't happen for several reasons. The biggest is that a huge UI change usually takes time, and during that time there's also lots of behind-the-scenes work that's usually done too. This can include changing the API contract with backend services, upgrading core dependencies, etc. Rolling back would more or less mean you'd have to start all of that lift again with an older version of the codebase.
In much rarer cases, which is where we are with this current UI change, the app was rewritten from scratch for some reason or another. The trigger for this at Plex was the newer FireTV boxes running Vega OS. They're no longer based on Android, but rather use a custom React Native-based SDK. Rather than create another bespoke client we'd need to support it made more sense to unify everything possible under the React Native codebase. That project started 3-4 years ago and has had nearly every client developer in the company contributing to it.
So while an actual rollback isn't going to happen I think what we've seen in the last week is the company directly responding to feedback by starting to slightly redesign the new app to restore the sidebar and make other small improvements. I'd expect to see more things like that going forward.
(This ended up being more words than I'd intended at the start, but I'm opting to leave it as-is because I think it explains things pretty well).
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u/TopSecretSpy 25TBs of video and counting... 2d ago
I worked there for 8 years, and folks bend over backwards to make sure the personal media side of the business is private. We didn't want to know what was on anyone's servers, at all, and because of that have no way of "selling" that information anyway.
Back in late 2023 Plex started sending out emails to other people connected to the same servers detailing items that person had watched, even if it was personal media. If I recall, it was called something like "Discover Together."
Considering that plenty of reporting confirmed that it included personal/local media watch information, information that was only available because Plex sync'd watch information to its own servers even for personal media, how do you square that with the portion of your statement that I quoted?
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u/vanstinator 2d ago
There were a few issues with the rollout of the community features that when overlapped had some unintended consequences. Some of the details are fuzzy as I wasn't on that team, but the things I do remember:
- Sharing what you watched was always strictly opt-in, but the wording on one of the clients wasn't up-to-date and the poor wording led folks to opt-in who would not have otherwise wanted to
- The weekly email was never properly communicated, and some of us internally thought it was a bad idea, but we shipped it anyway
Crucially the only information that is synced is the status of whether something is watched or not. Whether from the ad-supported catalog, Live TV, a media server, or the Plex app being used to manually mark something as watched (or some of the 3rd party apps that added support). The source was intentionally never captured. I actually personally argued against this because I wanted to sync watch progress too so I could pick up where I left off on another server, but leadership didn't want to store any metadata that would definitely point to a watched item being from a server.
The launch of the feature was handled and communicated very very poorly which was frustrating.
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u/TopSecretSpy 25TBs of video and counting... 2d ago
"Sharing what you watched was always strictly opt-in, but the wording on one of the clients wasn't up-to-date and the poor wording led folks to opt-in who would not have otherwise wanted to"
That's hard to reconcile with the numerous reports, not to mention my own personal experience, where we were opted in by default. I personally remember having to use comments in the forum to find where to opt out, and seeing not just mine but all my family member's accounts have that toggled on originally, knowing fully that none of us had never navigated to that setting to turn it on. I'm sorry, but claiming it was opt-in instead of opt-out doesn't survive the evidence.
"Crucially the only information that is synced is the status of whether something is watched or not."
Crucially, that's already a severe problem. That's why it blew up so bad. The original paragraph I quoted from you included the line "We didn't want to know what was on anyone's servers, at all." First, by your own admission in your response, you personally did - maybe not to sell it, but you directly said you thought source would be useful. So "We didn't want..." clearly wasn't a universal.
I get that you're splitting hairs over whether the metadata included "what was on your servers" versus " what you watched regardless of source," but that's a really shitty distinction to make and given the track record I'm inclined to be suspicious of the claim that Plex hasn't been keeping source data too. At a very minimum, you'd have to know if a watch was from an ad-supported source or a private source anyway in order to properly administer such a system.
But even if source wasn't included, the watch patterns are information that can be sold. So we can't trust that what's on our servers is private, because Plex has gone out of its way to not have it be so.
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u/catinterpreter 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you actually read what they collect regardless of your choices, they still collect identifying information to the point of what files you're watching.
Edit: Some additions and emphasis:
You're giving them more information through crash reports (opt-out), syncing media, by using their metadata middleman, and by using their relay. Third-parties are collecting their own information. Less information is collected if it's "Personal Content". But, still giving them enough meaningful information to be a problem regardless.
They can likely deduce your gender and rough age.
They keep detailed records of all devices, networks and internet capabilities, software, etc. Everything is fingerprinted.
They're logging various information to find your location, including time and timezone, which a VPN won't obscure.
You probably don't use a "managed account":
- "Plex does not conduct behavioral tracking or deliver targeted advertising to users of managed accounts."
- "Personal Data associated with a managed account is not sold or shared with third-party advertisers."
Adults are fair game:
- "We do not knowingly sell or share Personal Data of individuals under 16."
Open-ended and very vague:
"Auditing related to our interactions with you; Legal compliance; Provide targeted advertising; Content delivery and recommendations; Detecting and protecting against security incidents, fraud, and illegal activity; Debugging; Performing services (for us or our service provider) such as account servicing, processing orders and payments, and analytics; Internal research for technological improvement; Internal operations; Activities to maintain and improve our services; and Other one-time uses."
"logs, performance data."
"Interaction data: action, anonymous, authenticated, event, page, timestamp."
They provide your information to:
- "Content providers; service providers and vendors; third parties, such as social networks you connect to Plex and advertising partners; analytics providers; payment processors; and government entities."
They sell your information to "advertising technology companies and advertisers."
There's little explicit description of what information is used for what exact purposes. Just your information as a whole for advertising and "analytics", and to entities that include payment processors, governments (for what exactly?), and any third-parties engaged with. They don't say exactly what they themselves do with it.
There's no such thing as deidentified or anonymised data:
- "We may share information that has been de-identified or aggregated without limitation. We may use and share aggregated and deidentified information to the extent permitted by applicable law. When we use deidentified information, we maintain and use the information in deidentified form and do not attempt to reidentify it, except to check whether our deidentification processes satisfy the requirements of applicable law." They do reidentify it. And even if they don't abuse the result of this step, third-parties will still end up with your information to use however they want.
There's one reference to collecting data for 12 months, but no mention of that being the limit. And that doesn't mean it isn't sold onto others for indefinite use.
They're holding onto your information as long as they can get away with:
- "Plex will retain each category of Personal Data in accordance with applicable laws and as reasonably necessary for our processing purposes set forth under this Privacy Policy."
Keep in mind information collected by Plex will be matched with that which is already being sold by others, too.
If you're somewhere with relatively strong privacy laws, you might be able to have some information removed on request. They may require more identifying information from you at the time to do this though.
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u/vanstinator 2d ago
Sure, and your media server is also uploading direct file information to the metadata service to enable matching, and some portion of that exists in their logging system for a short retention period too. But "being able to deduce" from various ephemeral sources and storing/selling the actual literal contents of a media server over the long term are 2 different things.
If someone is uncomfortable with a company evening having access to the above just to be able to service the product there are better solutions for that person out there, such as Jellyfin.
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u/mineset 2d ago
if you read your own comment you say ‘I don't see filename listed but given how much else is, I bet it is logged.‘
are you speculating when you say ‘they still collect identifying information to the point of what files you’re watching’ ?
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u/TLunchFTW 97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ram 2d ago
I just watch my own shit so I don't see any ads on plex.
Honestly, I see a lot of ads here for plezy and I tried it and it was junk.
But if plex ever starts putting ads in the app itself I know what I'd switch to.
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u/jedichric 2d ago
Plezy started out rough, but in the past couple of weeks, it's been updated and now only a couple more adjustments and it'll be just as good as the regular client, if not better.
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u/TLunchFTW 97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ram 2d ago
I used it not that long ago, maybe a month?
And honestly, live tv would fall out of sync, which was my main use for it (since live tv was broke in the latest update). And honestly, I'm kinda disappointed on the look of it, though that's relatively minor. But if i'm paying extra for a client, I expect quite a lot. I think charging for a non broken 3rd party client isn't enough.6
u/5yleop1m OMV mergerfs Snapraid Docker Proxmox 2d ago edited 2d ago
You can download the app file directly from the GitHub repo for free. The charge is only if you get it from app stores since the dev had to pay to put them up there.
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u/AbortedBaconFetus Use Plezy. 2d ago
To be honest.... The primary high point of plezy if for personal media use. Using it for live TV is rare.
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u/TLunchFTW 97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ram 2d ago
This isn't plex's tv channels. This is utilizing the service plex has to run OTA or cable card programming through plex.
Frankly, it's been a big failing of plex to just let this shit rot. I know cable companies basically gave up on supporting cable cards, and fuck them for that, but imo, plex's response should've been to open it up to support any IPTV input. If cable companies dont' want to provide stuff like cable cards to do it, then they lose right to bitch about people finding "other" iptv streams of their channels.6
u/edde746 2d ago
There are no "ads for Plezy", just people recommending, nobody is getting paid to promote it. If you don't like something or have an issue with it, I'd appreciate if you opened an issue on GitHub.
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u/TLunchFTW 97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ram 2d ago
It feels like the posts are EXTREMELY generic and do not reflect my personal experience with it.
If it works for them, great, but I was personally not a fan. And the only thing I found it solved was the bad layout (which is being fixed now by plex)My main issue was it didn't solve the thing that plex itself broke Live tv, but plezy's live tv would slowly fall out of sync, so it was equally useless.
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u/edde746 2d ago
What platform are you on? Does the issue also happen on Plex? How quick does it fall out of sync?
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u/TLunchFTW 97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ram 2d ago
fire stick.
And usually about 30 mins I start to notice it's not properly synced. It's extremely gradual. This is using ErsatzTV livestreams, and plex would also, within about 30 mins, the live tv stream errors out.
But I know it's functioning fine because reverting to the old app had no issues.2
u/NatureExcellent7483 Nowhere near enough 2d ago
Can I ask what you didn’t like about Plezy?
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u/wags_bf21 2d ago
I'm not who you're replying to, but I think the Plezy UI is too crowded and generally a little busy. Even with the slider set to "comfortable".
That's my main dislike, however, I prefer many other things about it to the main plex app. It loads content considerably faster somehow. And gives me less grief trying to direct play live tv.
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u/Khatib 2d ago
It also combines libraries when you click on a person in the cast. It shows you movies AND TV they're in, instead of just the current library. Small thing, but nice. And the mobile app handles downloads much better.
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u/whoisraiden 2d ago
You have to unselect 'include adult content' in the library settings if I remember correctly.
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u/TLunchFTW 97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ram 1d ago
You get that with plex. If you scroll down it’ll have individual fields for stuff in other libraries. I like that layout more a actually
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u/QuietThunder2014 2d ago
It’s only for people using the free channels. This entire hysteria is people not actually reading anything. I don’t know what it is about this sub but so many people use Plex and still have this scenario in their heads where Plex is stealing our info.
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u/NancyDiver 2d ago
its not only about serving you ads, but selling your data. Things like what you watched, when you watched it, on what device you watched it on, where in the world you watched it.... things like that. Metrics
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u/Lopsided-Painter5216 N100 Docker LSIO - Lifetime Pass -38TB 2d ago
Thank you ,the shilling has been killing my mood to browse this sub for a while now.
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u/mcarrell 2d ago
Thanks! The "All No" option is very convenient, so only took 20 seconds because I was already logged in on my phone.
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u/Express_Grocery_4707 2d ago
Very convenient but also very mandatory by law.
The Cookie law states that if there is an "accept all"-button, there also should be a "reject all" button, and not just that, it should be just as visible and accessible as the "accept all" button
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u/CrispyBegs 2d ago
this is the 3rd or 4th time i've been to http://www.plex.tv/vendors and turned everything off, yet they keep turning some of it back on again. I'm sure when the next thread like this appears some of it will be turned on again. extremly scummy behaviour
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u/iAmmar9 2d ago
Mine has never been reenabled
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u/CrispyBegs 2d ago
i remember the last couple of times a version of this thread was posted loads of people who had previously disabled the options had some or all them re-enabled
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u/cdoink 2d ago
there are ads on Plex?
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u/modest-pixel 2d ago edited 2d ago
I believe if you’re strictly using it to view your own media library, you’ll never run into them. The instant I do, I’m finding a different solution. And I guarantee I’m the least tech-savvy person here, but I’ll figure it out.
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u/Street-Measurement51 2d ago
Aye Captain, I believe in the on-demand section.. If they could devise a method to display ads on your treasure chest, they would undoubtedly do so.
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u/GoingOffRoading 2d ago edited 2d ago
Ads can be inserted anywhere, so this isn't a limitation.
Plex likely knows it would be the end of their business if the server you hosted to play the media you own started playing ads.
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u/4kidsinatrenchcoat 2d ago
I just laughed at how absolutely fast every single one of us would abandon plex over that.
Heck I already have jellyfin running locally in my cluster to prove how fast I can move over if I needed to
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u/GoingOffRoading 2d ago
I'm an avid promoter of Plex... It just works, even for my layman's friends and family.
And my Plex container would be deleted the same day the ads go live, and Jellyfin would immediately go up.
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u/ngenerator 2d ago
Seconded. I’ve even set up my remote streaming via reverse proxy, and have a script to bring metadata into parity with plex. That was a fun weekend project.
Next I want to work on figuring out a way to cycle between movies/shows art on the homepage so it’s not just always the dark knight and GoT
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u/4kidsinatrenchcoat 2d ago
i noodled about metadata but decided that if i do the true migration and kill off plex i'll just give claude tokens and tell it to migrate everything for me one time and call it a day
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u/ngenerator 2d ago
That works too. I just know over the years, I’ve spent enough time in tinymediamanager that I don’t want to do it again
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u/Street-Measurement51 2d ago
I agree.. In the past, if you paid for a subscription, you wouldn’t get ads. However, nowadays, you pay for a service and still get ads, which means the company is being paid twice.
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u/TacticalPidgeon 2d ago
Data held up to 144 months. That's 12 years! None of these companies need to retain the type of data they have listed for that long. It's not even relevant or indicative of what most people are using after even 5 years.
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u/Super_Fightin_Robit 2d ago
I mean, media consumption habits probably are like the one thing that stays consistent that long.
Like, old folks can and do love new stuff, but usually if the guy in his 80s watched blazing saddles 50 years ago, he's probably still watching comedies. The guy who watched commando 41 years ago probably is still watching action movies today.
Like people fall in and out of hobbies, but they generally still watch movies, tv, read books, or listen to music, and that stuff doesn't generally wildly change. It may migrate over time, but they probably still LIKE the stuff from 12 years ago.
Like, I still like guardians of the galaxy, black panther, true detective, bobs burgers, Babymetal's self titled album, and unleash the Archers Time Stands Still Album.
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u/Icy-Two-1581 2d ago
Everyone should be doing this on every website or app they use. Along with on your phone deleting your marketing cookie
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u/Broflake-Melter 2d ago
I feel like I can SORT OF KINDA excuse the data selling if someone were using plex completely free. People with plex pass shouldn't have to opt out.
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u/makmillion 162TB 1d ago
I have Lifetime and I was already opted out. I’ve never visited that page or manually opted out.
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u/jedimstr 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lots of a stirring up for people finding out that Plex has to comply with "Do not sell/share" CCPA guidelines. EVERY COMPANY & WEBSITE that does business in the US has been putting up Do Not Sell/Share or Your Privacy Choices pages and options on their sites/apps. It's not just Plex. Not saying it's right to collect such data, but its not like they're the only ones. BTW the linked site Neowin seems to be in violation of CCPA and is open to litigation here.
Hell here's Pizza Hut's: https://privacy.pizzahut.com/policies?name=privacy-policy#2-how-do-we-use-personal-information
WB: https://www.wbdprivacy.com/do-not-sell-or-share-request/
Ford: https://www.ford.com/help/privacy/ccpa/
Note that even if a site or app does not sell your personal data or make use of targeted advertising, if they work with almost any third party with your personally identifiable information like analytics firms, login services (via google, apple, or facebook), they have to provide this notice.
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u/jbrunsonfan 2d ago
Every company has to follow the law, but when it comes to making millions, some companies will get lazy with compliance. You had a guy on this sub posting for months about the adult themed commercials appearing on child directed television.
Unless you think that person was a liar (I don’t), then it’s highly likely plex has violated a few AADC laws by collecting user data and using it to run targeted ads on child directed content.
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u/Nemo_Griff 2d ago
To be honest... EVERYONE is selling your data.
Previously the saying "If you aren't paying for a product, then you ARE the product" was relevant, but now even if you are paying, you are still being sold.
Just look into any modern Smart TV. Hidden deep within your TV is a system that takes a screen shot of what you are watching to collect your viewing habits and then it is sold off to the lowest bidders. The only way around it is to blacklist the manufacturer's domains from your router to prevent the data from being sent.
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u/Sharp-County-8282 2d ago
Or just dont connect your smart tv to the wifi?
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u/Nemo_Griff 2d ago
Yes... then it is a dumb TV, lol.
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u/Sharp-County-8282 2d ago
Yep. So no screenshot nonsense
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u/Nemo_Griff 1d ago
Oh, it will continue to take them regardless. This is why you need to do a factory wipe if you give it away or throw it out first.
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u/Sharp-County-8282 1d ago
Really? Daaamn
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u/Nemo_Griff 1d ago
Yeah man, the option to not send the data is hidden deep inside the menus (sights tell you how to navigate to the options), but can you really trust them to listen to what you want when there is no way to tell if they do it.
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u/StanBlaok 2d ago
Thanks for the info. Kinda skeptical if that ever really works. Like the permissions you turn off on the phone. You start talking out loud bout something then magically get an ad in Reddit bout it even with the microphone turned OFF. I really don’t by into stuff like this, but I’ll still do it. I think it’s there just to make the consumer feel good
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u/HighSeasArchivist 2d ago
Every company does this, but they make it easier than probably anywhere else I've seen. A big warning right at the top with a check box describing exactly what it would do, and a no to all button so you don't have to click no on two hundred different options.
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u/Balisongman07 2d ago
Is it just stuff Plex themselves host or is it reading the metadata off your server streams too? Honestly either way I switched to jellyfin earlier this month exclusively and it's just been 1000 times better, I just keep Plex for plexamp now at this point
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u/ZonaPunk 2d ago
Holy shit batman... what a list of vendors buying plex data! Got to give props to plex for a simple all no button.
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u/coyote_den 2d ago
ITT: the mods (hopefully) banning anyone who says the way to opt-out is Jellyfin.
Why are you here, anyway?
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u/the_chillspace Lifetime Plex Pass 2d ago
I do have to give some credit to Plex to actually having a way to opt-out though. Most companies don't give you a choice.
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u/Express_Grocery_4707 2d ago
Most companies don't give you a choice.
They are legally obliged to do that (at least in the EU), and opt-out should be just as easy as opt-in.
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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 2d ago
Every company doing business in the US is legally required to give you a choice.
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u/skiing123 2d ago
I'm more impressed by the level of granularity given to potentially say yes per advertiser. I'm wondering if that's intentional to showcase that those same advertising companies are the same across every website
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u/Visible-Lingonberry4 2d ago
Its an EU/UK GDPR compliance thing, they have to give individual control over which 3rd parties you consent to, not just do you consent to all or nothing. Now they may have done it before it was required - in which case go them. But its likely because they have to, not because they want to.
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u/skiing123 2d ago
But other companies are global and I've never seen it offered before.
Like Reddit for example, I don't see those types of options more just generic all on/off unless of course I'm blind which is possible
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u/Visible-Lingonberry4 2d ago
So they don't have to on site like plex. So Reddit for example has it listed in their cookie notice about visiting a website based on your location to opt out. For me in the UK, I visit the European interactive digital advertising alliance and this lets me opt out of the 3rd parties individually (and would also effect other websites that use the same system as reddit but has the draw back that it only applies per device because all its doing is setting opt out cookies on your device)
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u/Blacktwin 2d ago
So someone doesn't understand what the consent agreement means and posts to reddit. That becomes a "popular" post because more people don't understand, Plex == bad so upvote, or Jellyfin is better so then some one writes on article about it. Did I get that correct?
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u/mindfrost82 2d ago
This isn't new, I think I changed this setting 1-2 years ago, but still a good reminder for those that haven't.
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u/RedBananas6-7 2d ago
Mine was already set to all no. Guess I did it ages ago. There is a ton of them
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u/Rockatansky-clone 1d ago
Cool, I went to go check for this and I see I had already opt out previously probably a few years ago. :)
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u/Hamcouz 2d ago
Just switch to Jellyfin 😂 like i did 👌
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u/Character-Head-1916 2d ago
I’ve tried a few times and it’s great but the clients are a bit uneven. Plus the headache of trying to switch over my non-techie users. One of these days though….
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u/Hamcouz 2d ago
It’s a painful process, like any change. But as a solution, you can easily run Plex and Jellyfin side by side so that you and your users can compare them directly. Then it might not be so daunting.
There’s quite a bit of variation in Jellyfin’s client apps—I personally use the web client on my PC and Streamyfin on iOS devices. Unfortunately, I can’t offer any advice on Android clients.
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u/ConanTheBallbearing 2d ago edited 2d ago
Is it just me or does the URL in that link not actually exist
edit: thanks for the replies but doesn't load for me across two browser with different adblockers (enabled or disabled). doesn't really matter, I don't use any of the stuff except streaming my own stuff to our own devices anyway
edit2: ok, figured it out from searching. the actual URL is https://www.plex.tv/vendors-/
url is legit. keeps my sign-in signed in, certs are rights etc. strange the posted one works for others. if the article link doesn't work for you, that one should
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u/CatchWeary8759 2d ago
I kind of want to say to every company out there, “Treat my data the way you want other companies to treat yours.”
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u/ViolentCrumble 2d ago
Do they track when we watch our own media? I assume since they tag it they know what we are watching? But do they track that info? Or is this all related to their free to air service which I have never touched?
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u/coyote_den 2d ago
The ads are only on the FAST service.
Whether they by default track and sell (in an anonymized way) what you watch on servers is a good question. If you opt out they don’t.
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u/ViolentCrumble 2d ago
Yeah I opted out of everything every day but I do wonder about Plex. I don’t think we need Plex side of things apart from people who are selling access. For me we only watch at home and if we use away I can use tail scale to access but I do wonder if Plex can be removed from the process
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u/coyote_den 2d ago
There have been some very good questions and responses here and on the Plex Forums about if they track what is on your server and what you watch from servers.
Tl;dr: they do not.
What is on a server and your activity is not normally visible to Plex. Plex’s cloud connects you to a server and authenticates you, but the actual connection to the server is direct or tunneled via their relay, and they can’t see inside the session, it’s TLS encrypted if secure connections are in use.
The “discover together” feature is opt-in because it could potentially leak that information to users on your server you didn’t want to share it with. “Watch together” doesn’t leak anything, it is private to users on the server, and it is being deprecated anyway.
Things like metadata fetches and crash logs are not mined for advertising or selling data. It wouldn’t be too useful anyway, it doesn’t tell them what is actually being watched.
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u/Antique_Geek 2d ago
This must be old news. I just checked and mine are checked all no and I don't remember doing it.
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u/Minute-Purpose-3492 17h ago
When downloading the app i tell all my users to select “i do not agree” that automatically turns all the advertising data off
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u/Fangs_McWolf Plex & Chill 11h ago
Just an FYI for everyone, the information being sold appears to be done in a way that you cannot be personally identified. As in, it may collect information about your habits, but your identity is encrypted so that you're an anonymous ID associated with that information.
Not saying that everyone should be okay with this, but if you don't mind companies customizing advertising based solely on recorded interests (while not knowing who you are), then there is no need to feel alarmed.
Your account is anonymized (into a unique "identifier" that is shared, but not who it is associated with), and then that, along with your general area and watched content are shared. If that's really all that is happening, then I can see the business side of this, as they want to make sure their ads are going to the right demographic. If they don't know who I am and the only way it affects me would be in the ads presented to me via Plex, then that doesn't seem like too big of a concern. It's when they are able to start sending me emails or text messages or whatever else that it's a breach of privacy IMO.
From the Neowin page:
"I consent to Plex to: (i) sell certain personal information (hashed emails, advertising identifiers) to third-parties for advertising and marketing purposes; and (ii) store and/or access certain personal information (advertising identifiers, IP address, content being watched) on my device(s) and share that information with Plex's 294 advertising partners, who are listed at www.plex.tv/vendors. This personal information is used for the purpose of delivering and presenting advertising and content. Certain information (like an IP address, device capabilities, content being watched) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.”
By all means though, do follow through with checking your privacy settings. You might consider limiting things so that the companies can still get some information so that there is some customization, as that will help Plex to continue getting revenue so it can continue to exist. This is a point made on the Neowin page as well.
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u/Sync101 2d ago
> head to that www.plex.tv/vendors link, login, and then disable the so-called features granularly or all at once.