Not to mention, it’s one thing if you know your server admin is keeping tabs on it, and are cool with that. Even if they aren’t explicitly aware, they know what content is provided, and that the admin must be setting that up for them (library permissions, etc.), so there’s still probably at least some level of awareness.
It’s another to have the software automatically tell everyone else others using that server, without making you aware and no intervention on your admin’s part, what you’re doing. If they had just made them (me) explicitly aware and given me a choice before doing anything, they (I) might be more cool with it.
Well, the fine on Swedish big shark H&M ate awy 10% of their annual profit, for example. Something they would not like to pay ever again. And Plex’ situation is very different from all those profitable companies.
All the data comes from Plex software and I’d wager most users sharing a server aren’t necessarily aware how much data about them is being collected by the admin.
What you’ve done there is mistaken me not getting swept up in the hyperbole and misinformation and wanting to have an actual adult discussion about what has taken place with ‘fanboyism’.
For what it’s worth, I have no particular fondness for Plex. It currently provides the closest match for my media consumption needs and therefore I use it. As soon as that stops or something better matching comes along I’ll stop using Plex. In the meantime, I’ll continue to post in the forums as I see fit. If that means pushing against the ‘majority’ opinion on occasion then so be it.
~500 comments in this thread alone and still no meaningful response from Plex. If we ever needed evidence that they no longer care about what PAYING USERS want and are instead 100% prioritizing hypothetical future profits over basic functionality, this is it.
I feel like there’s a lot of counterproductive false information getting thrown around regarding this issue. It’s just muddying the valid concerns.
Assuming that someone got the Sharing popup, and accepted Plex’s recommended sharing with Friends… And assuming people didn’t go out of their way to change “Friends” to “Friends of Friends”…
Server admins share with all of the users on their server.
Non-admin Plex users are only friends with the owner(s) of servers they’re a member of.
Non-admin Plex users are not friends with any other non-admin plex users.
If you never got the popup in a Plex client, everything is supposed to be set to Private
The popup’s default behavior uses “dark pattern” UI methodology to nudge people into CHANGING the sharing settings to Friends (and Friend Lists to “Friends of Friends”).
And I’ve already had people scream at me and tell me I’m “lying” about this stuff. However…
Did people carelessly blow through the popup without noting the privacy settings?
Did their kid or spouse turn on the TV and blow through the popups and pick the defaults?
Did they recently sign up for a new account and not pay attention to the privacy settings when they set it up?
Did they literally go into their account settings and manually set the privacy settings, and just forgot about it?
Maybe there’s actually a genuine bug somewhere in the Plex software automatically changing privacy settings without people’s knowledge. I don’t know. But I’m a pessimist, and it has taken every once of strength not to throw a Ron Burgundy “I don’t believe you” meme up against some of claims in these threads.
People are positively frothing about this, and I can’t help but think that a not-small-share of those people simply carelessly f’ed up regarding their own personal privacy; and won’t own up to it. Raging with the internet mobs is the cool thing these days, but, F, man… It’s exhausting being on the sidelines, sometimes.
Did you see the new Swiss data protection act? In some ways it is stricter than GDPR. For example it introduces personal responsibility that can’t be covered by the company (e.g. CEO can get a fine personally)
