Plex now want to SELL your personal data
Plex now want to SELL your personal data
Text:
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 advertising partners. This data is used to deliver personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Your consent applies to all devices on which you have Plex installed. You can withdraw your consent at any time in Account Settings or using this page.
Soure: https://www.plex.tv/vendors/ (Might have to clear cache)
Can also read about the changes here: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/
Relevant XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/743/
Jellyfin is the way. Costs nothing other than the hardware needed and nobody is selling anything about you.
Our personal streaming library with Jellyfin is bigger than any public service and we can add to it from VHS, DVD, Blueray, though extra equipment was required for the VHS/Blueray.
It’s also available anywhere we go and we can set up separate accounts for different family members. There’s even a phone app.
content being watched) on my device(s) and share that information with Plex’s advertising partners
That is a honey pot rights holders will be falling over themselves to pay Plex for access to once they hear about it.
Been telling anyone that would listen that they need to get out of Plex since they implemented that first iteration of trying to require you to sign into your own self hosted server with a Plex.tv account. They were telegraphing what direction they were going in with that kind of user hostile move.
Lots of responses about how it was easy to get around so no big deal (or worse that they liked it for some coping mechanism reason) and that nothing else was as easy and feature rich as Plex so it was worth it.
Well now a few years down the road from that they are now going to use that beach head on everyone's Plex server they can to collect what is being watched and sell it to the highest bidder.
It is as if it is a general rule at this point that centralization breeds corruption. No matter how many statements people make early on in social engagements, centralization leads them to screw people depending on these systems. When making long term commitment to anything, check if it is centralized or how easy it is to unshackle yourself from it.
This is specifically related to watching their free content. You can opt out of the sale & sharing of said data, which is used to play you targeted ads when watching their free content. I am not a big fan, but this is the typical "free" TV spiel. Was there something that changed recently or is it just being recognized now?
I’ve had a lifetime plex pass for several years. Once I tried Jellyfin a few months ago it was all over. My “I’ll run both just in case” period lasted a week or two.
The downside is that Jellyfin will take more setup on your end, especially if you want to let other people connect securely to your server.
The upside is performance and responsiveness. Once I started using it I decided Plex had to go, even if I have to drive to each family member’s house to fix their shit. It was like moving between Linux and Windows, as far as one being designed to work and the other being designed to satisfy dozens of corporate KPIs.
Fortunately the setup for the end user is just as simple once your server is good to go. They just need URL, login, and password.
And since it’s all open source, there’s some fun diversity in clients. I use Finamp specifically for music, and there are audiobook focused ones.
Just downloaded Jellyfin! Been a Plex user for years. Noticed they’ve stated to add a lot of crap to the Plex interface. I just want to stream my media library. I’m a little disappointed that Jellyfin doesn’t have a native Apple TV app, but SenPlayer looks really nice and their price model is a one time fee. So no subscriptions!
best bet for your home theater PC is STILL old computer parts with high capacity storage
For those who aren't quite ready to delete their accounts get, this link buried on their privacy page can let you opt out: https://www.plex.tv/vendors-us
Not sure why "us" is in the URL, I'm in Canada
also: water is wet.
I think people feel loyalty to Plex and I understand why. I even understand why they're charging for self-hosting considering their costs of delivering the dynamic DNS, software development, content info, etc. But being closed source, VC funded, and with their core product an increasingly small part of their business, it's all a powerful recipe for enshittification. Tech Altar has talked before about how enthusiast brands often betray their users. Jellyfin was not a trivial set up for remote access, but I've really been happy with it, and I like having the peace of mind of having control over how it works
The downfall of Plex needs to be compiled into an 80 minute YouTube video with sponsors spaced in for NordVPN and Viagra
I miss when you could use something without it turning into spyware. Jellyfin it is then.
"Hashed emails". Besides the fact that they can match up a hash from one source to a hash from another source to link them to the same person (they never said they'd salt them), emails often have enough predictability to break the hash. Assuming they all end in "@gmail.com", "@outlook.com", or "@yahoo.com" will get you the vast majority of emails out there. Unlike a good password scheme, people don't shove a lot of random data into their email addresses.
Man Plex when fully enshitified FAST!
We are altering the deal. Pray, we do not alter it further.
Thanks for the headsup. This is the final push I needed. Been running Jellyfin for 6months or so but need to put more time into it. Plex has been great, and I’ve also been paying (though felt a little conflicted) a sub which I’m willing to do if it keeps a worthwhile project on an honest trajectory aligning with my needs and restrictions, for a good service or product. However they're now doing exactly why I started on the self hosting path. Who’s to say the third party is jot going to be a heavy handed industry body, corrupt authority , let alone the problematic world of adsales? They’re walking a very strange line and seem very confused about their purpose. Other than the all ruining ‘growth’. Seeya plex.
Stopped using plex, replaced with jellyfin
Last shit they pulled I moved to Jellyfin. Today I deleted my Plex account.
Even if you can mental gymnastics into believing this won't affect you, we know that's the way Plex is going. How long until it does?
Force PlexPass first, get money, then change terms.
Coordinated big-brain evil.
Big plus - identify all accounts interested in privacy. Thus = suspicious accounts.
This is the path for Plex to become Digg, Playon, and reddit.
How else can they afford to stream samurai cop 3 and other things you never asked? You guys need to support them in becoming the best corp they can be! They want to be big boys now.
Oh, you expect proprietary software to behave nicely? That’s cute!
I’ll just be over here with Jellyfin, watching the chaos unfold with my popcorn!
I’m a big fan of Jellyfin. I would say it is easily family approved. That is for my family in my household who is using it on our home Wi-Fi.
But I am not about to expose it publicly. I have WireGuard set up on my immediate family’s devices and that is mostly ok (until you get on a public Wi-Fi that fails because you haven’t gone through their portal and can’t because the vpn is on, or you are on an airplane’s Wi-Fi with no internet trying to watch their movies and it doesn’t work until you turn off the vpn). Explaining this to my wife has been a nonstop battle.
I’d like it open it up to my siblings families, especially because I have the ersatztv plug-in to create approved child stations, but so many smart tvs and devices don’t support a vpn. How have others handled that situation?
My aim is to get my friends and family to stop paying for streaming services and if I have to pay for Plex to achieve this then that’s a win.
Jellyfin is nowhere near as feature complete as Plex and not by a long shot. My users don’t like the UI of Jellyfin and setting up for remote access is no trivial feat. With this in mind and my goals Plex is better suited.
So far have 8 users all saving £10-40 a month not going to streaming services.
I can imagine this data would sell for quite a bit of money. Networks love to winge about how much they lose to piracy
Plex has always been trash imo. Far better open source options available.
Emby is a good option if you don't want to hop to jellyfin. I have been pleased with it so far. I found the media tag/idenifier to work better/quicker than plex's.
Just deleted my account.
Hey, you reading this? You should too.
Hello Jellyfin.
I would probably still want to use Plex due to its superior interface, despite this shit they are pulling. But Plex on my TV is so UNBELIEVABLY slow. I have a large library, like almost 14 TB and still growing. But there's no reason it should take almost a minute (or more than?) for the first content to show after starting the app.
Jellyfin with the same library takes mere seconds before I see the first movie/episode poster cards. It's inexcusable how poorly optimized Plex is.
The more services you have depending on a 3rd party which can do whatever the fuck they want, either directly or by changing the rules when the feel like it (i.e. not bound by rules they cannot change, such as root DNS providers are) and then doing it, the less your system is actually self-hosted, IMHO.
For me the whole point of self-hosting is exactly being as independent as possible of 3rd parties that can just fuck you up, be it on purpose (generally for $$$) or because they go bankrupt and close their services.
This is why I've actually chosen to run Kodi on my home server that doubles down as TV Box even though I can't easilly use it from anywhere else (it's possible but it involves using a standalone database that is then shared, which can only be safelly done through customly setup ssh pipes) rather than something like Plex.
It's kinda funny to see people into self-hosting still doing the kind of mistake I did almost 3 decades ago (fortunatelly in a professional environment) of trusting a 3rd party to the point of becoming dependent on them and later getting burned when they abused that trust, and which led me to avoid such situations like the plague ever since.
Mind you, I can understand if people for whom self-hosting is not driven by a desire to reduce vulnerability to the whims of 3rd parties (which includes reducing the risk of enshittification) and is instead driven by "waste not" (for example, bringing new life to old hardware rather than throwing it out) or by it being a fun challenge, don't really care to be as independent as possible from such 3rd parties.
Got rid of Plex a long time ago. Trash ass program
Can't sell my data if I've never given them any
so whats the issue? just declining doesn't work?
Frogs do enjoy a good sauna. 😊
If that's your line, then more power to you. I'm happy to live in a world where people make choices I don't agree with - but I will always respect those who make an informed choice over people who let fate or advertising make their choices for them.
However, I also wouldn't blame others for looking for an exit. Or testing other waters. Or at least thinking the grass might be greener elsewhere.
If you do continue to use Plex, consider taking a weekend for a hobbyist project such as a VPN server (OpenVPN or Wireguard are classics and broadly indistinguishable from work traffic) or a reverse proxy web server (nginx proxy manager is a good place to start). Not only are these useful and fun†‡, but they defang one of Plex's most marketable features - the automatic NAT traversal.
†I put 3 VPNs on all my phones - a split tunnel to home; a full tunnel to home; and a commercial VPN with international egress points. The split tunnel lets my phone access my home services from any network it's connected to (without impeding traffic destined elsewhere; the other ones are for coffee shop use). I can also give out access to the split tunnel to trusted friends to access my guest network. Also have a site-to site with a friend for off-site backup (with an encrypted tarball of my configs).
‡For the reverse proxy, I enjoy stapling it to my router's public 80&443 and using DDNS to point vanity.example and *.vanity.example to my home public IP (I like to live dangerously; cloudflare tunnel & pangolin exist, too). Inside my home I have *.internal.vanity.example and *.home.vanity.example for the management webUIs and intranet versions of services so that they can be accessed via https with a secure lock.
Having your own tools to build your own cloud - on a raspberry pi, or an old spare laptop or retired desktop, or a second-hand mini PC is worth the hassle, particularly if you are using Plex baked into an Nvidia shield or other proprietary product, can offer options - and it never hurts to have options.
… But at this point I'm well and good into preaching to the choir.
Tl;dr: No hate to Plex users, but maybe have a plan. 😅
luckily it never had it
Can someone explain to me why you need anything more than directories filled with files to view content?
I'm struggling to understand why anybody would need or want something like Plex.
I want to watch a movie. I open explorer, go to the folder movies, select the movie, and double click the icon.
The end.
Do people actually watch whatever plex streams? The only reason I use plex is to rewatch Star Trek for the 18th time.
someone should make a jellyfish plugin that brings up a consent screen that says you consent to give yourself over to eevee and naruto.
"Updated “Who does Plex share or sell Personal Data with?” to include the Plex activity that you share based on your account visibility and activity settings as well as sharing/sale of certain Personal Data to third parties.
Nothing changes for Plex Accounts created before March 20, 2025 unless you change your preferences here. If you are a new user and created an account after March 20, 2025, you can update your preferences here. The types of data that we may share has not changed We do not and will not collect information about content or titles in your personal media library or what you’ve played. Personal media users: we do NOT, and will not, share or sell any information about the content and titles on or your use of a personal media server. Consent is required by all Plex Accounts created before March 20, 2025 for the sale of their data."Seems like it's just for their other services, which I already assumed they were tracking and selling view counts.
One of the security upsides to plex is that any number of people can log in with the same credential.
That means that while Plex can harvest information- what account, what's being watched, IP address, device and player identifier- It doesn't know who to attach that information to. So you can get dozens or maybe hundreds of users polluting the same account with watch information. Less useful information to be sure.
On no, an opt out, such a tragedy.
They prominently point this change out and kind of force you to choose whether you opt in or out. There is a single checkbox to opt out of all. But yes, it's a bad direction. Just maybe not the apocalypse implied by some.
@Sunny lol OK so which subdomain do I block.
