The stupid thing is that this could so easily have been rolled out with no real complaints. Just ask us if we want a social profile, with an option to just say “No.” If we say yes, get us to confirm who we share with that we want added as a friend. If a social profile isn’t created, don’t collect this invasive data.
Anyone who wants this kind of stuff could have it, and those of us who despise social media could avoid it. They’d probably not even have had that many people opt-out. I doubt a single person I share with would have bothered to opt out.
Instead they did it all sneakily and via opt-outs and now a lot of people are (very understandably) pissed.
It’s crazy - JUST last week, I was talking to a friend who was hyping up Emby and I was saying I’ve never had any issues with Plex and I have a lifetime license so I have zero incentive to switch. Now I am heavily considering it.
I hope the fines make it such that the PE firms Plex,Inc took money from are forced to fire most executives at Plex,inc to make up for the fines. Whatever exec came up with Discover is clearly incompetent. From showing hardcore adult porn to kids (we remember the rollout of discover and that specific fiasco), to completely lying about “opt in vs opt out”, to being too cowardly to address this massive breach of trust in the forums.
Heads need to roll from the top on this one. I hope the EU takes the max they can and seizes 4% of global revenue from plex,inc.
The usual answer is that it’s not the whole team, it is a single executive, who probably got all this same feedback from his or her own team before going forward with it anyway. See the recent fiasco with the Unity game engine for a similar example.
While I’m hoping the teeth in the GPDR provisions and/or significant bottom-line customer impact will provide the necessary correction, it’s also possible that neither will and this same executive will continue to regard all our concerns as useless mouth flapping. In which case you may then need to ask, “How can users be so stupid to fall for the same breaches of trust with different companies over and over again?”.
I’d suggest most of us didn’t know it even existed !
Unless you follow the forums closely, most still won’t know.
The whole Discover fiasco was one thing. At least that mistake (porn propagation) was acknowledged, albeit not actually totally resolved. I’m still finding Discover invading MY Plex experience.
The bloody mindedness of the current Plex response to this latest mess is astounding.
Plex used to be R&D based, it is clearly now driven only by some flakey P&A execs that really don’t care.
This is extremely disappointing. Venture funding should be outlawed, it always leads to ensh!ttification there are zero exceptions. I knew plex would disappoint and I’d have to move on eventually, sad that it might be sooner than I’d hoped as this is a horrendous breach of trust and privacy.
Why was I automatically made “friends” with everyone I share my server with? And no, there was no separate option to add the sharee as a friend when I added them. How is that opt-in?
When will these privacy controls be added to localhost browsing of Plex via the web?
Astonishing how Plex approach development of software I have been using for more than a decade. Moreso since the VC.
There are well documented serious flaws and failures on various clients that Plex need to resolve but for the most part have just ignored.
No, they focus on introducing personally invasive and largely pointless (to customers) ‘new features’. These new features also have serious flaws technically and legally and yet they march on largely ignoring customer’s feedback.
Edit - I am normally very supportive of Plex, defensive some would say. Personally the offering works well for my needs but I just can’t support or defend them anymore. It really does make me sad as Plex as an offering and indeed Plex support in the early years was fantastic.
Because it was was always like that before. We we split them we did not delete the friends.
If you are using the bundled web app to managed your server via IP address that has not been updated yet to current version as app.plex.tv which has new features which is is the last option
The claims in those “additional details” do not appear compatible with multiple users’ claims that they have been surprised to find their viewing details shared with friends. I’ve now spent the last half hour or more trying to understand this topic and I still have no idea what information may or may not have been unwillingly published about my activities so far. I believe I have now set my settings to the least public possible, but again I have low confidence in what the applied previous state (before I ever saw them) actually was, nor what protection the new ones are actually providing, or not.
Is there a way I can request an audit report showing exactly what details about me have been shared with whom? Preferably on an ongoing basis so that users will become aware should a “bug” or “mistake” occur in the future?
Something worth considering, if you haven’t already, check the “Experimental Features” setting in your account settings. It defaults to disabled, you’d have had to manually enable this one.
This has the potential to offer new features to you. I don’t think it had any impact on this particular feature but it is a way to potentially limit your exposure to stuff which isn’t fully-baked.
I have this enabled on my account and still got the initial setup dialog when Plex turned on the full feature set. But my experience isn’t necessarily the same as yours. However, I’d recommend reading and understanding any dialog presented by an app before blindly clicking through.
[Edit]
Changed second paragraph to “offer new features” vs. “opt you in to new features.”
Friends list https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/friends which are whom it would be shared with if privacy settings are set for that. (Friends are no longer tied to server library access so you can remove friendships without removing library access.)
