this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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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.

https://imgur.com/a/DYR4wlh

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.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the heads up, not a fan. I've been running it concurrently with Jellyfish but looks like it may be time to ditch it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (9 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Problem is my user base are TV and mostly non technical people. No way they setup and maintain a JellyFin install. That’s why Plex just wins.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

What? Why would they need to setup a whole install to use your server? Just connect to the server in one of the numerous apps and login to your account?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

And if JF won't work for you, Emby is pretty decent as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (35 children)

Made the switch to JF about 6 months ago, Never looked back!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (5 children)

JF has no proper chromecast support… ☹️😤

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Yes it does.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (7 children)

What do you mean? I have used chromecast with Jellyfin many times.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

What's the safe way to expose jellyfin for users to access without a vpn or cloudflare tunnel (tos)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I left Plex as soon as they made it a pain to not use cloud logins.

Wtf? Why are you asking me to look g into MY system through your server? Get outta here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Scarily, one can opt to receiving the summaries, but I see no tick box for sharing _my_ activity with friends???

https://imgur.com/a/NM1esO6

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Right - it's controlled server side by Plex and so far as I can tell there's nothing you can do. Your friends would have to go in and turn it off in their accounts. It's disgusting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think you can disable it here:

Settings > Account > Sync my watch state and ratings

It's kind of disguised as some feature to allow you to sync movie status among all plex servers. But disabling this would probably disable their ability to see it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

FYI, my setting is marked inactive, I do remember the in-your-face popup on my tv and I disabled all of the sharing. Still got an email this morning.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (8 children)

You can set it in your profile settings

https://imgur.com/a/Xp9LwqI

But it's worrying if it's opt-out and not opt-in - even if they did prompt me to look at it when I first logged in after the added the Friends Discovery thing. Although the disclaimer suggests that for US users at least it might be opt-in, I honestly don't remember what the default was for me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

the fuck?

it's a media server. Why do I want 'friends' involved at all?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This here. This setting is absolutely controllable and if memory serves me right i had to enable it when the feature rolled out. In fact, I just made a brand new account and after signing in the very first option is to either accept or change the setting.

https://i.imgur.com/8rvyjOt.png

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I assume this stuff is US only at the mo' because I can't see those settings at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

UK here and I can see it

exegamer76's comment above gives the link

It seems to be the following:

Go to https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/profile/edit

Click on "Privacy Settings" at the bottom of the page

Dialog from the screenshot pops up

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

This is why I don't use Plex.

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.

Glad to see I made the right choice.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

umm??? How does it share this data with respect to its own privacy statements???

https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/

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.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

so what's the option now? jellyfin?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Do any of you check your privacy settings? Because you can turn off sharing data with other users.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

OMG this is a company killer mistake. I will never use or recommend Plex. wow

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Making me more glad i never had plex. DLNA ftw!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I guess you could do that…or you could switch to a company that hasn’t gone to $hit like Jellyfin or Emby.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Please elaborate more on the blocking, such as what IPs should be whitelisted.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Use jellyfin. Problem solved

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Get rid of Plex and use Emby

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

If the software is free, you pay with your privacy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

It was clearly obvious from the very beginnings of Plex when they forked out of XBMC that they were shady and in it for the cash.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Man I'm even more glad I went with Jellyfin over Plex when I kicked up my media server last year.

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