Submission: Complaint to the European Commission

General Discussions
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Hello everyone, I have today filed an official complaint with the European Commission in Brussels. If you want to follow suit, please feel free to use the following template:

European Commission
Directorate-General for Competition
1049 Brussels
Belgium

Subject: Complaint Against Plex Inc. for Targeted Discrimination and Violation of EU Competition Law

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to file a complaint against Plex Inc., a company based in the United States (Address: 449 N Santa Cruz Ave, Los Gatos, California 95030, US; Website: www.plex.tv). On September 12, 2023, Plex Inc. announced its intention to block one of the largest hosting service providers in the EU, Hetzner. This block was implemented on October 12, 2023. Since then, all IP address ranges associated with Hetzner have been blocked, preventing EU citizens who are Hetzner customers from using Plex’s service.

It is particularly concerning that this block is specifically targeted at Hetzner, a hosting provider based in the EU, while other hosting providers are not affected.

Plex Inc. justifies this action by stating that a few users resell the service, thereby violating Plex’s Terms of Service (TOS). However, this targeted block affects all users who utilize Hetzner’s service, regardless of whether they violate the TOS or not.

I am personally a paying customer of Plex and feel discriminated against by this action. I believe that this practice violates EU competition law as it constitutes discrimination based on the chosen hosting provider and hinders free competition.

I, therefore, urge the EU Directorate-General for Competition to investigate this matter and take appropriate measures to put an end to the discrimination against EU citizens and to ensure free competition.

Enclosed you will find Plex’s announcement dated September 12, 2023, as well as confirmation of the block’s implementation on October 12, 2023.

Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to a prompt resolution of this matter.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Name]

Send this as Letter or to: comp-whistleblower@ec.europa.eu

6 Likes
Not Allowed to use Hetzner
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Thanks for your time spent writing this letter.
I have just sended one too.

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Thanks for the template, just sent out!

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Is hetzner an ISP or a VPN service? This letter does not make sense, Plex isn’t engaging in any form of anti-competitive behaviour even if they do block an ISP, they have no stake in internet service provision unless I’m missing something.

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Hetzner is an ISP

I am not fully informed about what exactly has transpired between Hetzner Online GmbH and Plex Inc. What does concern me, however, is the manner in which these disputes could potentially affect the customers of both companies. Instead of resolving the conflict through legal means, it appears that both parties are choosing to settle their differences at the expense of their customers. As can be seen, neither company has provided any background information as to why the current decisions have been made.

It is not my job to determine who is in the right or who is trying to protect their customers. For these types of conflicts, there are institutions like the EU Commission. The EU Commission not only examines the allegations presented but also investigates any other potential violations by both companies.

In the European Union, citizens have the opportunity to submit such corporate conflicts for review. Companies based in the EU are generally given special protection against foreign companies.

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(PERSONAL ASSUMPTIONS INCOMING)
It’s an ISP that also provides computer hosting services. People are using this to get relatively cheap computer server hosting for a Plex server. It seems it is a popular service for hosting a Plex server that they then sell access to on the side to other users. Using Plex in this manner is against Plex’s terms of use, and the accounts are closed when detected by Plex.

However, it just becomes a game of cat and mouse at that point. These server owners simply make a new account, and re-host this server under a new IP at Hetzner, continuing to sell access to their server.

Since most illicit Plex servers are hosted on this service, Plex decided to take the extreme stance that Plex servers (intended to be for personal use only) are supposed to be hosted personally at people’s homes, and anyone using Hetzner’s service is likely using it for illegitimate uses. And has banned all access to servers in Hetzner’s hosted site IP range. This should only affect users that host it in Hetzner’s sites, not anyone who uses the ISP.

This action is similar to streaming services banning VPN IP ranges, because VPNs are often used to bypass geo-restrictions on content (Netflix might only have the rights to stream a show in the US, so blocks European clients from seeing it). AFAIK, nobody has successfully filed a complaint to the EU about Netflix blocking VPN traffic, so I doubt this complaint will get anywhere.

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Complete nonsense, top to bottom. First, “most illicit Plex servers are hosted on this service”? How would you know that? I’d say that some very large percentage of all Plex servers, no matter where they’re hosted, are violating the Terms of Service. Got pirated material on your homelab? You’re violating the terms of service. Sharing with anyone not in your immediate family? You’re violating the terms of service.

Second, nowhere has Plex said that Plex servers “are supposed to be hosted personally at people’s homes.” Nor have they blocked any other hosting provider besides Hetzner.

Third, you have no basis for claiming that “anyone using Hetzner’s service is likely using it for illlegitimate uses.” And certainly there’s no evidence that TOS violations are more common on Hetzner servers than anywhere else.

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I did put a “personal assumptions” warning at the head of my post.

We don’t know much of anything, so pretty much anything I have to go on is an assumption. Even then, I usually do put way more qualifications in my statements, and try to use less definitive phrasing such as “most users are”. Sorry about that.

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Hosting your Plex server somewhere outside your house is common in Europe when you have more than one or two clients outside your house. The reason? Usually the Internet speeds are asymmetrical, so you might get very little upload compared to the download speed. A common package in the country I live is 200mbs download and 25mbs upload. I have a “good” package, 500mbs download and 50mbs upload.

If Plex now says hosting your server externally is not allowed then that should be clearly written in the frontpage or somewhere clearly visible, not in a 25 pages TOS that was edited last week.

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Netflix bans all VPNs when it is technically reasonable to detect them. If Netflix said “Using AirVPN is banned” then that would be something different. AirVPN is based in Italy and they would be only banning that particular VPN while any other VPN would still work, including all American ones.

Plex didn’t ban all hosting services, they banned one based in the EU. They have all the right to do it but the EU might fine them or tell them they can’t operate in the EU under those conditions. But probably nothing will happen.

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They didn’t even ban Hetzner. For one thing, the email we received doesn’t mention Hetzner by name. It says only: “You’re receiving this notice because the IP address associated with a Plex Media Server on your account appears to come from a service provider that hosts a significant number of Plex Media Servers that violate our Terms of Service.”

For another, it also doesn’t say we can’t continue to use Hetzner. It says this:

If you leave your current installation as-is, you will have issues connecting to it from Plex apps as well as managing it. To avoid these issues, we suggest that you consider alternative hosting options, including hosting it from your home. [emphasis mine]

It is a certainty that this email passed through a legal department before it went out. Reading between the lines (especially the bolded parts), it seems to be saying: if you leave your server as is, it will be blocked; if you modify its configuration, then maybe it won’t be. And though we “suggest” alternative hosting, we don’t demand it.

It’s artfully worded to give the impression that they’re saying: “move providers now and, better yet, host from home.” But that’s not what it actually says. I suspect they know that to insist that people move providers or host from home would be legally untenable.

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I have my server at home. My upload speeds are 20mbs. I would LOVE 50mbs. Hell, 25 mbs is more than I have now. But even with 20, I have no problem streaming to my family and friends. I’ve supported as many as five at a time. None of my content is 4k, but even if it was, they can deal with a transcode.

1 Like
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Up until 2 years ago I was dealing with 4 “mbs” upload. I’ve been running a Plex server for more than 10 years serving family and gopro videos to family across a number of countries. :smiley:

I now have 15 “mbs” and it works just fine from what the family say LOL.

Must admit I never considered cloud hosting.

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The problem is Plex client implementation is kind of crappy. I myself have no problems streaming from outside my home because I am fairly familiar with how Plex client works, so if I try to play something and it is stuttering due to not enough bandwidth at the moment I go and check the bitrate of the video and then I change the quality in the settings to something lower spawning transcoding. If it still stutters then I reduce it even more. My clients outside my house do not know how to do that, they are very technically handicapped. The solution obviously is to automate this on the client side, and Plex has been trying to implement this but their implementation is horrible and it basically does not work.

It is good for you that you are happy with 1080p y**y movies, but some people want to see something better.

P.S., to be fair, since a few months y**y has been offering x265 releases, and while they are still very small files, their bitrate is much better compared to the past. Still not really good, but good enough for plenty of people.

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