Not justifying it but I just find it somewhat perplexing that no one saw this coming with how Plex has been trending in the last, I don’t know. 6 years?
The weekly emails were rolled out terribly, but Discover has been in beta for a year and companies make you OPT OUT all the time, very rarely are people “opting in” to new features. It’s the way of software unfortunately for good or bad.
There is a reason why Google doesn’t just broadcast your YouTube watch history to the world…
Perhaps many assumed that after the fiasco of the Discover rollout that Plex might try better.
Seems not.
I have not had these type of issues with other software. Perhaps I don’t use the software that you do ?
Probably off topic at this point but you don’t use software that has rolled out features without knowing of such? I can’t think of any software that doesn’t do this. No software company would roll out a new major feature and turn it off by default. If they did they just wasted X number of millions in R&D to do it.
I understand this isn’t just any old feature and it should have been CLEAR AS DAY what was gonna happen when it showed up, but the writing also been on the wall for awhile with Plex and social media so I guess I just wasn’t surprised by it.
Trakt is massively successful, that to me is essentially what this is which is probably why it didn’t bother me much. I have about 25 friends connected to me and not one has complained about it, in fact a few are interacting with it by rating more content etc etc. I guess it depends on your user base.
That is exactly what is required by law in many countries/regions when it comes to data sharing.
The argument of Opt in and Opt out.
I specifically said
I was not referring to general feature roll out.
However, even so, all details of software feature updates I have had from other software titles have been provided in an update note prior to install. It is a very common practice and one that Plex follows in most cases. There have been a couple of glaring failures.
I think the damage and resentment to Plex as a product is only growing with this one. I think Plex needs to read the room on this and remove the entire feature ASAP. They can then re-evaluate and poll users going forward on how such a feature ‘should’ have been implemented. Imposing a very controversial feature that was never wanted or asked for and arrogantly pushing on loyal users is not the best business model my guy.
If the official Plex line is to press forward with this and just get us to change settings and hope for the best you will lose a LOT of users. I’ve been a Plex customer for over 10 years and even just bought a lifetime pass but will not personally use it ever again unless this diabolical change is rescinded. You guys lost a lot of trust from your core user base today. You will need to do some work to get it back before this becomes a serious problem for Plex as a product.
Like many others I am deactivating my Plex server with immediate effect until Plex has FULLY removed this ‘feature’.
Oh look, Plex rolled out a feature nobody asked for and enabled it by default for everyone without considering the consequences or ramifications.
Must be a day ending in day (remember the Plex News rollout?)
I appreciate everyone who has provided links and instructions in this thread for disabling these so-called “features”.
“Next major update: See where your friends are! we geolocated your IP and shared your location with your friends so you can see exactly where you are! if you have the mobile app it shows in real-time, to help you organise watch parties in person!” 
It’s already being shared.
And while your older software might not know how to show you the controls, you can visit your profile on the web site to view and change those controls.
Because they may not have it in the first place.
Youtube doesn’t (yet) require that you log in before they’ll let you watch videos, so anybody who takes the right steps to “anonymize” themselves (i.e. don’t log into google anything, clear cookies and other local data, use tor or a VPN to anonymize your IP address, etc.) can watch videos “anonymously”. They start a brand new empty profile every time they’re not able to figure out who you are, so … while they do track the fact that somebody watched the video, they may not be sure who watched it.
With Plex that isn’t an option. If you’re not logged into a Plex account, you can’t watch videos - especially not from other peoples’ servers.
Have you not noticed all the Opt Out or In modals/pop ups/banners in regards to data tracking on your favorite websites? This is a major concern in the digital landscape and thankfully some regulators are hammering down on it. I’m amazed the Plex team has not taken note of this.
Either you’re simply being stubborn or you’re completely oblivious to the risks of privacy and why it needs to be carefully handled which is NOT what Plex is doing currently. I purchased an Emby lifetime license during the BF event last week and plan on migrating away from Plex. It has been almost a month now and Plex has shown little to no interest in listening to their users and we are screaming over here.
The fact that a client device can make core changes to your user account is another problem altogether. This kind of thing should NEVER have been implemented with a series of popups that anyone (even kids) could have clicked through without realizing it. I know for a fact its happened to many of my users that had no idea what happened, but are now having their watch list blasted out in email. I even found that one of my Professional IT friends even had this turned on and didnt know about it. I had to TELL him that I was getting emails listing his viewed content from HIS OWN SERVER. That tells you a lot! This is a huge data security failure.
Plex policies are forged by lucifer himself! Does anyone know of an alternative. It looks like Plex has turned to the dark side and I don’t trust them anymore.
Jellyfish is the alternative,
Working on a walkthrough to mimic all features and functions.
Well, I did. And a lot of other guys who some years ago already moved on to Emby or Jellyfin …
Ok, so no problem to you then. I didn’t switch and it’s also not a problem for me either.
disable this plex setting RIGHT NOW
Disable These Plex Settings Now | Plex is Collecting Your Private Info & Sharing Your Watch Data
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