Plex crossed a line with "Your week in review" emails today.
As you may have seen Plex decided it was OK today to send an email showing me what my friends have been watching. To be clear, this is Plex telling other people what I've been watching from my server, with my files, and this is not OK.
We all knew it was a matter of time before Plex started collecting data on our libraries and sharing it with advertisers. What happened to their "we don't know, and don't want to know, what is on your server"?. This, for me, is proof that those fears were absolutely founded in reality. On what planet would I ever want this information to be shared with friends on family on an OPT OUT basis?
It's totally unacceptable to collect this data in the first place. It's totally unacceptable to share this information with uniquely identifiable information. And it's totally unacceptable to do this without explicitly asking me if it's OK.
Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about this as a server admin, because technically these are Plex users and their marketing email preferences are controlled on the user side in the Plex website preferences. Not on your server.
This is an absolutely egregious overreach.
Thank goodness there are alternatives available in the form of Jellyfin and Emby. I left my Plex server up after the Jellyfin January challenge we did on the Self-Hosted podcast but because of this I feel that I have no choice but to take it down for good.
That's why I just can't trust proprietary software anymore. Some of it is unavoidable though without making things unnecessarily hard/worse for yourself.
Shit like this gets pulled all the time, most of it is probably never discovered because it's all hidden somewhere deep in their executables/firmware/binary blobs or whatever shit they push onto you...
I went to install it once because I heard it was good. It said the next step of the installer is make a plex online account so I can log in. I looked for the 'I don't want online I want local' option but I didn't see one. So I uninstalled.
Nowhere did it explain what if any access Plex servers have to my media library (metadata or files), so I said no thanks I'll just go back to using folders.
I've had plex and the arrs going but without a VPN (USA), got hundreds of take down notices sent to an old email address and went to spam folder, and two personal paper letters from ISP. I decided to shut down the arrs and haven't torrented in about a few months.
A few weeks ago I added someone on plex to share my media with. Just got a 3rd letter from my ISP for sharing media. Plex is the only thing running that could cause this.
Time to finally shut it down and load Jellyfin. It's been coming for some time; but this is the nail in the coffin.
M. What information does Plex collect from my Plex Media Server?
Plex does not share information about your Personal Content with third parties.
Plex does not collect:
Content titles of your Personal Content.
Filenames EXCEPT those that may be collected under Debugging Information below.
Metadata for Personal Content (e.g., information about the specific file, cover art, subtitles, running length, etc.) EXCEPT to customize viewed content syncing to enhance your account or if you have enabled metadata matching capabilities in which case such data will be anonymously sent to us or you have integrated with a third-party control or playback mechanism that requires us to access your metadata to play the relevant content (e.g., if you use Amazon Alexa to play a particular song or movie from your Personal Content, then our Services may search your Personal Content metadata in order to find and play the song or movie requested.)
Just use Plex offline and you are good to go. If you don't know how to use Plex offline read up about reverse proxies like Nginx and how you can allow access to download meta data but block basically all the rest and even fake that Plex thinks its online.
I drop Plex years ago when they started doing shifty stuff. If I was sharing content with another person or someone with sharing content with me it it would start getting blocked and turned off. I guess they don't want people to use their software
Don’t forget every email provider who accepted the email (and all three letter agencies who monitor unencrypted email) also have that info now as well.
Great, another stalker. Glad I bailed out a year or more ago to Jellyfin.
Is plex trying to accelerate their "customer" fleeing their platform? I'm pretty sure that one of the most important financial metrics they report is number of active users, and I'd think they'd be trying real hard to avoid customer churn. Sending out that "we're watching you" creepy vibe seems counterproductive.
I hope jellyfin comes fully to samsung tvs soon since the only thing stopping me from moving to jellyfin is my dad uses a samsung tv and I live to far away to go sideload it for him
There's nothing you can do to stop Plex collecting the data, but you can at least stop your friends seeing what you're watching by adjusting the privacy settings.
I can’t wait to hear your full take on the next podcast episode.
I started looking into Plex AS this all started happening. Fortunately, I haven’t had the time to spend on setting up any media components, but man am I glad I didn’t go this route.
I first started looking into an XBMC replacement when my OG Xbox died and I thought there must be some new FOSS replacement to put on some Raspi. Must have been 5 years back? Lots of "experts" sent me to Plex, I took one look at the EULA and said no effing way.
So this is not news to me that they keep and run stats on all my files, watching patterns etc. I have a feeling most users filled up their media servers with torrents and questionably sourced files, not legal rips, and I found no reason to opt into something like that even if my files were all legal. Jellyfin is mature enough at this point for my needs, I know it's not perfect, but it's all local.
What's up with companies making shitty defaults nowadays? Who would think this actually brings value for the majority of people hosting their own media content? This another overreach trying to act like Netflix?
The sheer quantity of analytics from both Plex clients and servers, regardless of what options you select, is the number one blocked item on my Adguard Home install. Plex is, by no stretch of the imagination, not at all respectful of privacy.
Plex has sadly lost its way, and this year I finally switched over to Jellyfin and it's much better than the subsequent years I've tried to move across. Other than simplicity of exposing your server on the internet, Plex's value proposition has tanked.
AFAIK they don't circulate emails to your contacts, but smart TV makers routinely overstep the boundaries of acceptability and harvest data that should remain private. On LG TVs, for instance, if you insert a USB, the contents of that USB are read and sent back to HQ to further add to the other data they capture about you e.g. watching patterns, which sources you use, which programmes you watch etc. They cash in by leveraging such data. Low TV prices are effectively subsidised by this model.
It’s not necessarily from your server, even if you just mark a movie/show as “Watched”, it’ll show up on your feed. No one will know if it’s from your server or not
Left Plex for Emby (when they started adding their own content and marketing it to me) few years ago, never looked back.
You are absolutely right, one email like this and I’m gone. Emby does what it’s supposed to do and just that, that’s all I care about.
Jellyfin looks cool too..
I know what the discussion on my favourite podcast is gonna be next week. This is kinda shenanigans. Ive had plex SO bloody long I dont remember ever getting this option to set it. Now I only have 1 friend, but still. Setting changed.
Edit: I commented on why im still using Plex the other day
My Jellfin server has crashed a few times for no ryhme or reason without having touched it for a couple of weeks (no patches, no watchtower for docker, just dead). Plex has been fine.
Plex has proper intro skipping.
I was able to set up parental controls on Plex very quickly without any headache.
The wife/kid factor. Plex was/is easier for them.
The amount of time I have invested into managing Plex over the past decade is still less than I have into managing Jellyfin in the past 3 years.
Lifetime plexpass was gifted to me.
I remember getting downvoted to all hell somewhere when I suggested switching to Jellyfin because of Plex’s awful privacy policy and how they kept shoving the “free on Plex” crap on my home screen every time Plex updated. Switched to jellyfin about a year ago. Goodbye Plex, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
this thread got me thinking. i was not happy about what plex did as many of you also did not like it. so today i installed jellyfin to test it out. i'm very impressed. the ui is simpler than plex, but i really like it. i found that it isn't exactly free though. to get guide data for live tv you must pay for the guide data, with the lifetime plex pass that was free. so this is a $35/year cost. not a huge issue, but true. the other thing i noticed is the media playback control is not as good as the plex control, but no media app has one as good as plex. need to think about this but i'll probably switch.
The joy of Emby 👌 I literally chosed to go with this because of this reason and support the team with the Premiere membership. The client apps might be less refined, but they have come a long way!
I mean.... Plex didn't force you to friend anyone, and explained what being "friends" meant (being able to view their watching / rating / etc) so... Sorry you didn't bother to read?
Plex has always been for retards, people who are 7 years behind the tech-curve. You deserve this. They're just protecting themselves from the inevitable, the inevitable that you caused by misusing their software to do illegal things. Yes, I am a pirate myself so I know what this is really about. You're morons.
I have never used Plex, never interested to self-host it, never read about its history, didn't understand its pricing, didn't understand its self-hosting vs paid thingy.
And I will keep it that way !!
But, One thing that I do understand is that there are Venture Capitalists who are running the show now. One thing for sure about VCs is that they don't care about products or services, they only care about financial returns.
Now they are just generating the buzz in the community. It's just that they are waiting for the right time to screw everyone. Because the VCs will want their investment's returns.
So, thank you to Plex for existing, but NO THANKS !!