I think you guys are seriously over-reacting and assuming malfeasance on the part of a company that has been straight with its users from Day 1. If they say they are not collecting identifiable data, I am inclined to believe them. As for the other data sharing, it makes sense. If Plex had a Netflix integration, for instance, Netflix would know what you were watching. Personally, I would love to see this happen. One of my fondest dreams for Plex is having a way to integrate my UV and DMA titles with my local ones, but things like that can never happen without subscriber data sharing.
- Plex team buys some new office security cameras.
- Camera producer state it do not have any back doors built into them. Nobody is watching Plex office that shouldn’t.
- Camera producer changes ToS specifying all clients who bought their cameras will be monitored without any means to disable said monitoring. But, assures the clients that all data collected is safe and will not be sold/given to 3rd parties.
Now tell me Plex will be OK with this.
Yes, nobody is doing anything illegal in front of the cameras, but yet…is there anyone who would accept that?
@hexluther said:
No, I’m referring to the metadata. To know duration, you have to read OUR files. To know codec used, you have to examine OUR files. So on and so forth. Come on now.
In order to make your media look beautiful and full of metadata, we need to read YOUR files. The posters, e.g. come from IMDB, TVDB, TheMovieDB, etc. Are you at all worried they are keeping per-IP logs of poster downloads? From a practical matter, if you want to live in a world where there is absolutely no data sent about your files to the cloud, you would use something like VLC. But again, we at Plex have zero desire to store any identifiable information about the files you’re playing or adding to your library.
Just out of curiosity sakes, would you mind telling us precisely what such data is used for? x.264 is x.264, HVEC is HVEC, MP3 is MP3. How does creating metadata from what is being streamed (of ANY type) helpful in improving services when standards already exist
It’s extraordinarily useful to know the codec mix, e.g. to understand when media will be transcoded vs not on particular platforms. Some platforms (e.g. Roku) are adept at direct playing lots of different codecs, whereas others (Smart TVs) are not. An example I think I gave earlier is around the number of users which are using image-based subtitles on Smart TVs. If there were a substantial number of users doing that, in combination with servers which aren’t powerful, that would be a very bad experience and we’d be smart to look into ways to resolve that issue.
@elan said:
@hexluther said:
A twist of words, “selling or GIVING THE DATA AWAY”. Sure, you won’t sell it or simply give it away for free. But, you’ll hand it over when demanded.I’m assuming you’re referring to data about media stored in or played from people’s private libraries, which I’ve already told you we have no interest in having. As I pointed out elsewhere, people raised the concern around “secondary data” (e.g. durations), and we’re going to ensure the data is “fuzzed” to the point where it’s not identifiable.
Is there other specific data you’re worried about?
Yes, we’d like to “fuzz” all of the data. In fact, we don’t want to send it at all.
Data we’re worried about:
“device type, duration, bit rate, media format, resolution, and media type (music, photos, videos, etc.)”
You’re obviously a smart guy considering you built this empire. It’s not hard to combine those items and figure out EXACTLY what movie/tv show/porno/etc someone has put on their server.
Scenario:
You collect the following information from us: 1:43:34 duration video at 1048 kbps bitrate with a resolution of 1280x536 at 2.35 aspect ratio in a MP4 format with a size of 776.62MB.
The MPAA decides they’re going to subpoena your records for an IP address that they believe has torrented movies illegally. They already have all of the torrents of all major videos analyzed and the metrics all fed into their system. So now, they get a court order and force you to send them all of the “metrics” from a specific IP address. They run that through their database and start figuring out EXACTLY WHAT MEDIA WE HAVE ON OUR SERVERS.
Don’t bullshit us by saying that every concern we’ve raised is nothing more than FUD.
@elan said:
@janngobble said:
You need to understand @elan, we don’t believe Plex. We can’t afford to.Just to be pedantic, trust is a big part of this. If we’re not trustworthy, we could give you an opt-out toggle which did nothing except make you feel better. We are not that company. We’re the same group of media loving fanatics (and users!) we were 10 years ago. The reason why I’m in here commenting over and over again is that I care about the way you feel, and we’re reading and listening to what you’re saying.
Oh you want us to trust you?
What have you done to earn it? Market a halfway done DVR product only to change up the privacy policy after you got the subs you needed?
@mbrown9nu said:
To all who had possibly hoped for a roll back of this new policy - Elan’s statements continue to note what they will be doing with the data - they are not talking about rolling any of this back on their calls today.
I wouldn’t make such assumptions. Step one in any discussion such as this one is to understand where everyone is coming from, and correct any misperceptions.
@rsava said:
I have been reading about this today (I am in the US but it interested me) and are you sure it has to do with data like this? I thought the complete insight into stored data was for “sensitive personal data”. Just wondering, obviously as someone who is a DPO (at least I think that is what you would be called) you know a lot better that someone who is just reading/researching about it today (that would be me).
To answer your question: Let’s say that I am a customer to a company that sells a subscription, no matter what kind, but they store my delivery address, my contact info, in Sweden where I live, the so called personal number. Maybe this company would like to know several other details about me, such as number of family members, their age or preferences and so on. They would like to use this data in order to maybe create “family packages”. I, as customer can request them not to store other data than the minimum amount of data necessary to them in order for my subscription to work.
I hope I could explain this clearly enough, I’m sorry, english is a second language for me.
So, in this particular case, storing my IP-address and my film preferences are not necessary for Plex, it is optional data and I have the right to opt out. As it is now, we all agreed to Plex policy when we became customers and GDPR will not be valid until 25/5/2018. This kind of privacy law exists already both in EU, as well as in Sweden. Not sure however of the details.
To @elan : My biggest concern is not Plex knowing what movies I am watching and what codec or what time of day. I don’t care about that. I care about the fact that data that would identify me as an individual will be stored and may be accessed in the future by companies such as MPAA or NSA or such who will force Plex to give this data away by subpoena.
In Sweden at least with all the witch hunt for the downloaded movies this is a big concern for many young people.
/Mike
@elan said:
It’s extraordinarily useful to know the codec mix, e.g. to understand when media will be transcoded vs not on particular platforms.
You have that data already! … from those guys you didn’t opt-out.
@elan said:
An example I think I gave earlier is around the number of users which are using image-based subtitles on Smart TVs. If there were a substantial number of users doing that, in combination with servers which aren’t powerful, that would be a very bad experience and we’d be smart to look into ways to resolve that issue.
But if the subtitle support is so bad that everything is transcoding, I may not use the subtitles anymore (making the sacrifice in order to save power on the host machine etc.) because the implementation is so bad. I hope you take that into account.
Low usage =/ low interest
@ShadowBlade72 said:
You collect the following information from us: 1:43:34 duration video at 1048 kbps bitrate with a resolution of 1280x536 at 2.35 aspect ratio in a MP4 format.
Definitely not going to do that. As I’ve mentioned a few times, we don’t want to collect any identifiable data, and you’ve rightly pointed out that this sort of data can be used to at least narrow down the identity. It would be more like: 1.75h 720p 1Mbps MP4 video
Don’t bullshit us by saying that every concern we’ve raised is nothing more than FUD.
Not my intent.
@elan said:
I wouldn’t make such assumptions. Step one in any discussion such as this one is to understand where everyone is coming from, and correct any misperceptions.
There is no “misperceptions” to CORRECT!
What part of YOUR CUSTOMERS DO NOT WANT TO GIVE YOU THEIR INFORMATION do you not understand?
Just because you want this information doesn’t mean your customer has a “misperception” they need to “correct”.
Your stance on this is the height of one sided arrogance.
ALLOW US PAYING USERS TO OPT OUT! SIMPLE!
@marcelhehle said:
@elan said:
It’s extraordinarily useful to know the codec mix, e.g. to understand when media will be transcoded vs not on particular platforms.
You have that data already! … from those guys you didn’t opt-out.
Here is his response from Reddit concerning “why you need this data from Pass users”:
“If we didn’t have usage data from Plex Pass users, we would be blind as to how our premium users use our product, especially around Plex Pass features.”
@ShadowBlade72 said:
Here is his response from Reddit concerning “why you need this data from Pass users”:
“If we didn’t have usage data from Plex Pass users, we would be blind as to how our premium users use our product, especially around Plex Pass features.”
Reads like “blah blah blah blah” to me …
elan said … It’s extraordinarily useful to know the codec mix, e.g. to understand when media will be transcoded vs not on particular platforms.
It would be extrodinary if plex stops transcoding everything and lets me get back to watching my material direct stream like before…
elan… If there were a substantial number of users doing that, in combination with servers which aren’t powerful, that would be a very bad experience and we’d be smart to look into ways to resolve that issue.
yes… plex has been a very bad experiance of late… and you dont need meta to tell you that… thread after thread of issues where plex has not been handling subs well or clients not communitcating to the back end true direct stream capabilities… all need fixing… the new auto quality is a disaster… streaming brain has never fully worked properly… all could be fixed … should be fixed… etc etc etc… on and on…
@elan said:
@mbrown9nu said:
To all who had possibly hoped for a roll back of this new policy - Elan’s statements continue to note what they will be doing with the data - they are not talking about rolling any of this back on their calls today.I wouldn’t make such assumptions. Step one in any discussion such as this one is to understand where everyone is coming from, and correct any misperceptions.
Good to hear that you want to understand where our anger stems from. Stop and listen to your user base.
Then leave the opt-out in the program. 
@elan said:
@ShadowBlade72 said:
You collect the following information from us: 1:43:34 duration video at 1048 kbps bitrate with a resolution of 1280x536 at 2.35 aspect ratio in a MP4 format.Definitely not going to do that. As I’ve mentioned a few times, we don’t want to collect any identifiable data, and you’ve rightly pointed out that this sort of data can be used to at least narrow down the identity. It would be more like:
1.75h 720p 1Mbps MP4 videoDon’t bullshit us by saying that every concern we’ve raised is nothing more than FUD.
Not my intent.
There’s a difference between saying “we promise not to abuse our newfound powers” and actually having it written into the privacy policy. How about a simple “collected data will be used exclusively by Plex and will not be provided to 3rd parties or Plex partners for any reason.”
If you are truly going to ignore the outrage and remove our ability to opt-out, then we want some iron-■■■■■■■-clad guarantees written into the privacy policy outlining the handful of things our data will be used for. In addition, we want to see that no data will be tied to specific users, IP address, etc. and will only be collected and stored in AGGREGATE.
As well, a user had asked previously for you to provide us an example of what the collected data would look like. I’d like to see that as well. Actual metrics pulled from your current test platforms. I think if we were able to see what is being collected, it would help to assuage some of the fears.
@mbrown9nu said:
Then leave the opt-out in the program.
Plex is actually violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for EU consumers by not getting specific opt-in consent. Let that sink in. They can’t just apply the Privacy Policy in September without requesting consent from each EU customer, for more information about the term “consent” see here:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/283885/knowing-your-rights-e-g-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr-for-eu-customers
@dragonmel said:
the new auto quality is a disaster…
This is easy for you to say, but we measure the quality of this in two ways: (1) number of stalls per X minutes and (2) overall average quality of the stream. Both of these metrics show substantial improvement for streams under ABR on LAN and WAN scenarios.
@ShadowBlade72 said:
I think if we were able to see what is being collected, it would help to assuage some of the fears.
Agreed, and that is our intent.
As my brain process this more and more I am increasingly aware that many/most that are complaining about this, myself included, are missing something. The agreements we agreed to basically say that by using the software we agree to the privacy statement and some other agreements that include Plex’s right to change those in the future. So we have pre-agreed to whatever changes that Plex may choose to make.
Plex has also given and continues to give us the right to “opt out” in that we can choose to run (opt in) or not run (opt out) the Plex software.
Plex is important to many of us BUT it is not esential and no one is in any way forced to run it.
Since we are not forced and we have the option to run something else or run nothing it seems that Plex is in compliance with any and all laws and rules of the industry.
Many people on here are choosing to (or at least saying they are choosing to) “opt out” by ceasing to run Plex. That is their right and no one should question that.
However, as far as “refunds” go I do not think that anybody is entitled to one although Plex may choose to honor some. The agreements were in place for some time, pretty much well before most of us started using Plex, and those agreements (like pretty much every agreement that exists for software) included the clause that allows Plex to change it as they see fit or as needed for their business. Since the agreements were in place when everyone signed up and since we agree to them whenever we run Plex and since we did NOT pay for Plex but for access to Plex Pass features and since using Plex is a choice I do not see any justification for refunds. I see this as a clear case of “caveat emptor.”
