Now that Plex is searching multiple outside services, does this mean that our search terms are being sent to Plex so these search results can be retrieved?
Are these search terms being archived as well? Are they being sent to any outsider partners?
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TL;DR - Search terms are stored and associated with your account (for now) but never shared with 3rd parties.
Since we launched our Discover Beta we’ve received some questions about the data we collect when a user searches for content via one of our applications and we wanted to clarify how this works. When someone searches for a title like ‘Star Wars’, we search the following sources and display the results:
- All Plex Media Servers associated with your account
- Our Video on Demand catalog
- Our internal copy of the global metadata catalog to find “More Ways To Watch”
We store an event associated with your Plex account that indicates you searched for something and the search term you entered to find it. Search terms are NEVER shared with a 3rd party.
How we handle search results varies based on the source you interact with.
- When you click on the search result from a personal media library, no additional data is recorded.
- When you click on the search result from our Video on Demand catalog or “More Ways To Watch,” we store an event associated with your account that indicates you clicked on a search result, the unique id of that result, and the search term you entered to find it.
“More Ways To Watch” search results
When you click on a movie like Star Wars in “More Ways To Watch,” we display the list of 3rd party services that have Star Wars and simultaneously search any Plex Media Server(s) associated with your account to see if they have the content. The Plex Media Server(s) must be online to be searched and the search results are simply displayed on the details page. There is no information collected about personal media libraries or any possible library matches in this scenario.
When you click on a link to an external service, the 3rd party that resolves the deep link URL will only see your IP address (since the request originates from the Plex app you’re running).
Why is this data associated with your Plex account?
Our privacy preferences page outlines the categories of data we collect and how we do it. Some data is associated with your account and other data is collected anonymously without associating it with user id or IP address.
Any data associated with your user id is done so for the purposes of accurately counting the number of unique individuals that interact with our features or further understanding how our products are used. This data helps us improve the quality of our service. Collecting search terms help us improve the relevance of our search results.
Changes we’re making
We’re going to take this one step further by separating search terms from the event that records that a search takes place. The fact that you performed a search will still be associated with your account, but the terms and results data will be anonymized and stored separately. This will allow us to still accurately count who uses the search feature without associating terms with individual accounts. This work will be completed within the next few weeks and historical data will be updated.
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Excellent!
I’m fine with you tracking how many times a search term has been used, but not who did the search. It sounds like these new changes will suffice for my concerns about privacy.
I’m also glad you are separating the search terms from knowing who click on search data. It would be too easy to use the absence of clicked results’ data to determine what items are in our local libraries.
Thank you for listening and taking the needed actions!
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