There are lots of thoughts on the pending changes to the privacy policy, including Plex’s removal of the ability for users to opt out of data collection – this discussion thread is for those who are generally positive over this move – i.e., users who love/like/don’t care or are ok with these pending changes.
This is a joke, right?
I posted up in the previous thread that PLEX had new intentions in working things out with 3rd party content publishers and this article was in a business related website. I knew as early as February when the article was published that perhaps meant that provisions and policies would change in the future. Why? Because NOTHING free nor bought is guaranteed in this life that we live and PLEX, GOD, or SATAN can GIVETH and TAKETH. That’s just the facts. At least my media I have on my storage devices are safe and sound (again, until GOD or SATAN taketh away). Soooooo for me at least I saw this months in advance. Other people thought nothing of it or didn’t think PLEX would betray them. It’s not betrayal. Betrayal is what Wells Fargo did to their customers. PLEX is sliding into new business territories and has to change these policies to work with the new content partnerships. What PLEX should have done was done the hardest thing to do… be BLUNT, be HONEST, and sit us down for the bad news, if you think this is bad news. I don’t agree with it done on a Friday and I don’t agree with it only being mailed out in EMAIL. I’m not defending PLEX 100% but I’m also not agreeing with how users are becoming sore losers over this. PLEX should do better than this and come clean.
AND I really hate to admit that my bank has better timing in delivery bad news with their policy changes.
@lr1950 said:
I posted up in the previous thread that PLEX had new intentions in working things out with 3rd party content publishers and this article was in a business related website. I knew as early as February when the article was published that perhaps meant that provisions and policies would change in the future. Why? Because NOTHING free nor bought is guaranteed in this life that we live and PLEX, GOD, or SATAN can GIVETH and TAKETH. That’s just the facts. At least my media I have on my storage devices are safe and sound (again, until GOD or SATAN taketh away). Soooooo for me at least I saw this months in advance. Other people thought nothing of it or didn’t think PLEX would betray them. It’s not betrayal. Betrayal is what Wells Fargo did to their customers. PLEX is sliding into new business territories and has to change these policies to work with the new content partnerships. What PLEX should have done was done the hardest thing to do… be BLUNT, be HONEST, and sit us down for the bad news, if you think this is bad news. I don’t agree with it done on a Friday and I don’t agree with it only being mailed out in EMAIL. I’m not defending PLEX 100% but I’m also not agreeing with how users are becoming sore losers over this. PLEX should do better than this and come clean.AND I really hate to admit that my bank has better timing in delivery bad news with their policy changes.
We all see that Plex is slowly moving away from.their current business to more 3rd party provided content, like their new news channel thing that they bought…
But to sell our info is another level of f* you
Literally do not care. Nearly every piece of software and platform, paid or not, collects some kind of anonymous usage data. Keyword: anonymous. No personally identifiable information, no filenames, no folders, etc. This isn’t a violation, this isn’t a slippery slope, this isn’t anything new. The best way for developers to get feedback is from these kinds of functions. People almost never voluntarily provide feedback for a product unless either asked (low likelihood of response) or if they’re experiencing an issue with it (almost always negative and useless). Without feedback, devs can’t improve a product. This isn’t a “making you the product” nonsense. Stop getting your panties in a knot over nothing.
I thought about that last night about how almost every time I chat with a ninja and they ask for my logs, only to return a few hours… or a day later since some are in EU and tell me there isn’t anything there, to upload a new log. I don’t know, if submitting my ■■■■ automatically without this run around would help, but I’d let them take a gander because I don’t like how a couple of ninja’s are hostile and I prefer to avoid their hormonal state that their in. I prefer for PLEX to get what they need. HOWEVER, seeing that there alternatives to PLEX right now, PLEX has been shooting themselves in the foot for the past 8 months since the year has begun and there are a lot of features STILL missing or open holes in the app to fix and nothing substantial has been released lately. PLEX can’t hide behind “we need more data to work on new features” yet when they haven’t fixed or updated what already is broken and have multiple UI’s for just about each device platform, which really doesn’t need data.
Absolutely do not care. But then I own all my own media and only stream my own stuff when remote. I do share with my brother in law but I can stop that. He barely uses it.
Trust me, your ISP and Google know much than Plex is going to know and the government you live under knows more than that (unless you are in a third world country, but even then …).
Anyone who has a) a smartphone; b) uses Waze (owned by Google and the Waze app NEVER stops tracking you since about 2 or 3 updates ago); c) owns an Echo device; d) owns a Google Home; or e) does anything online (without using Tor or an anonymizing VPN) or leaves their house for anything like shopping or the like is being tracked every step of the way.
You may think that you are not being tracked but you are. Sure, go ahead and believe your government is looking out for you. They’re looking out, but AT you not FOR you.
I understand what you’re saying, and I agree with you. From birth as a US citizen I was issued ONE, ONE special card with a SKU of numbers called a social security number. I’m more AFRAID of the unknown when using or carrying this card with my social security number on it because it identifies who I am and can track where I worked, where I lived, and how I conduct my self in society. And I can’t OPT-OUT of using that social security number. Period. No matter what I or you say, those people really should live in a underground bunker. They need to blame the internet because that’s how this all got started lol I’m more afraid of the American government right now because they may pass the ATT & TimeWarner deal. I’m more afraid of the FCC because they will allow Comcast to do more bad things, worse than PLEX. The last thing I’m worried about is PLEX tapping my butt and analyzing my data. It’s the lack of features and closing the loose ends of known bugs and issues that are not taking care of that bothers me.
I’m in the boat of not caring either. For reasons stated above my comment. Everyone / thing is tracking you already. I personally believe Plex will use the data to better the app. I can see how people could be upset over this, they probably use a modern smartphone and don’t even realize how intrusive that is.
Edit: People don’t have to use their service. You paid for a lifetime pass which was your choice. I’m sure somewhere in those agreements it said “the policy terms can change any time without notice” or something along those lines. You can get as upset as you want over it but there is likely nothing that can be done unless Plex decides to reverse their decision on their own.
The mis-information and assumptions are what is completely over-the-top. ‘Duration’ is a good example. Duration means the time spent in the client - not the run-time of the file. If people actually read the entire policy (instead of the summary), it states that run-time of files is still not being reported.
I’m not overly concerned with the telemetry but I’d like to know exactly what information is collected and be assured it’s anonymous. The privacy policy statement was far too vague and now the forum has exploded with (what I hope is just) paranoia. So Plex, why don’t you guys come out and set the record straight. Specifically this statement: "…but we do not sell or share your personally identifiable statistics." What personally identifiable statistics do you collect and why?
OMG, they are losing their minds over in the whiny threads.
I find it all rather humorous.
I wanted to let @elan know - those of us that understand get it. Those that don’t never will.
Oh, and to go along with some of the posts above:
@lr1950 - I agree, some of the bugs are annoying and I wish they were worked on more. But overall we love Plex and are happy with it.
@jik0n and @XOMTOR - yes, knowing exactly what is being seen would be nice. But it could also be proprietary and not releasable.
@eherberg - Yeah, the people who are venting the loudest have probably only read the summary or heard about it on Reddit - that bastion of truth and correct information …
One thing that I thought of that really makes me chuckle is that all along they have believed that Plex was not doing anything nefarious becasue “Plex said so”. Now they are being totally upfront and letting people know - THIS IS CHANGING - and all of sudden Plex (and for some reason @elan himself) is Satan incarnate.
@feyded said:
None of those can get you prosecuted for having something you shouldn’t like Plex could if they leaked their users information ‘AGAIN’.
There I fixed it. Remember, data had already been leaked from Plex, so it would be “leaked their users information AGAIN”. Not to mention should they be subpoenaed for such information which would then exist.
I don’t advocate for our privacy due to possible piracy being done/performed on any particular server “owners” (I suppose that term in of itself is open for debate now that Plex feels the need to dictate what is or isn’t OURS), rather, privacy for ALL. I’m no more the police or policing authority of a server “owners” habits than Plex is.
So, I get it, though I’d rather conversation not go in -that- direction, as too many will focus on it, losing the true focus; and that is simply, Plex attempting to dictate to us what is or is not private.
I think my comment is fair for both sides so here it goes…
I think transparency can be the key here for a solution. If the user can see the data that is being uploaded to the Plex Server they can regain the trust. Just like the log files let the user see the upload data as a text file.
I believe if the user does not have an opt-out choice then they need to see exactly what information in plain text is being uploaded. Some times seeing is believing.
My concern:
Things like photo tagging that uses a 3rd party site to analyze the image from your library. As of now its not clear how that is affected but there are many similar concerns. Is any of that data being transmitted to Plex ? It has happened with other services that they say we collect only analytic/metrics data but in reality there has been more. .And what if they get hacked ? Their forum has been hacked once already and it is a single sign-on.
Yup exactly. The United States is the way it is because of the lack of caring. Little freedom at a time gets sucked away until one day you wake up and it is all gone. Everything you knew is no longer there. By then it is too late to care. But as far as software and tracking goes I do not care either. I gave up on all that when facebook, google, amazon started tracking everything. In some ways the tracking canc be useful in determing what restaurants u like for example based on the past restaurants you have been to and how many times. In the end nothing is really ever private anymore and it can be sad but it can also be a good thing. I think the key to remember is two sides to everything will always exist and you really should be able to have a civil discussion about things but some people are too sensitive nowadays and think they have to be “right” in order for the world to continue. As far as the privacy goes, you never know if enough of them really complain Plex could revert it but I doubt it.
“Rights” reminded me about this video:
Holy crap … there’s a fanboy thread! LOOOOOOL
