I’ve been noticing for quite some time, even just today that movies I watch on Plex are mysteriously becoming movie recommendations on YouTube a couple days to a week later.
It’s not a question of whether the leak is happening, but where it might be occurring.
I’m suspicious of TMDB API usage and the owner companies use of data, om suspicious of Plex running on Roku and Roku somehow capturing data and sharing. Looking to see if anyone else has noticed this or similar issues and ideas on how this might be happening.
I’d lean towards Roku. I think they are starting to examine the actual VIDEO OUTPUT of your TV, and collecting information on that and sending it to their advertisers.
Since your IP might now be associated with watching a certain movie, advertisers can purchase IP-based advertising, which would explain how Youtube could pop up ads for the exact movie they associated with your IP.
Addendum: As oddly as Plex has been making app decisions lately, I still seem to think that our own server contents are not being leaked outside. Most likely, those account settings you see are for Plex’s own free streaming services, and they really want to be able to sell what stuff of theirs you watch.
Initially, my thought was Roku too, since I see them as more aggressive with sharing/ selling data. I assumed Roku OS might have some ability to look into an app to see what it’s doing.
However, after reading the new Plex privacy policy I now believe it was Plex but it was more of an oversight with my account. I have a very old account so my understanding that any sharing I would have enabled according to their policy. I also made sure last year that nothing was being shared with the options available then. I also believe my IP was being used to associate this data with Google.
That said, the new options in my account were new to me and the options were unchecked. I just checked them today so I’ll have to see if YouTube gets wind of my watch history now. As long as it stops I’ll be happy about it.
