> In order to understand the usage across the Plex ecosystem and how we
  > need to improve, Plex will continue to collect usage statistics, such
  > as device type, duration, bit rate, media format, resolution, and 
  > media type (music, photos, videos, etc.). 
  > **We will no longer allow the option to opt out of this statistics collection.**

Ugh. Not especially happy about this one.

EDIT: First it was opt-out, which is bad enough (opt-in is much less underhanded). I am calling this new thing the "sucks to be you" option. :(

This is going to be very interesting.

The European Union General Data Privacy Regulation is going to come into force very soon, and it applies to anyone processing data of EU citizen.

Under that, this privacy policy from Plex would be a crime, as you need to provide an opt-out for this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...

"It is a violation of the Plex license to use this software in Europe or any other jurisdiction subject to the European Union or any of its laws or regulations. We disclaim all responsibility, and will not be held liable, for any violation of the laws resulting from or associated with the use of our product."

Would that work? Because dollars to doughnuts someone's going to try it or something like it.

I'm no lawyer, but from similar situations I'd imagine that they would need to make a reasonable effort to block EU users from using the product to get away with that. Eg. forcing users to use a VPN by hiding the download button for EU IPs.

Isn't Plex based off XBMC/Kodi and licensed under GPL2? I didn't think GPL2 allowed adding additional restrictions to the license?

https://github.com/plexinc/plex-media-player/blob/master/LIC...

Only the native Plex player is based on XBMC/Kodi, the Plex server and web player is and always has been proprietary. I also imagine the server is where they do stats collection.

OK, they could make it part of the TOS of their online service.

You know, the service you're giving information to in the first place.

No it isn't

Is https://github.com/plexinc/plex-media-player/blob/master/LIC... not the Plex source code repository?

Nope, that’s the interesting part of the GDPR. No ToS, no contract, no terms can get you out of it.

As long as you have a single EU citizen as user, you’re liable.

Read the article I’ve linked, it’s definitely an interesting law, and will create lots of interesting legal debates.

Are you sure about that?

The European Union General Data Privacy Regulation regulates only personally identifiable information. IF(just an assuption) the collected data does not identify the user, does it still apply?

For me, plex is kind of this love-affair-product-turned-into-company based on unique insight into the home media experience, years before any other. I'm sure the founders and employees were passionate about what they did. And still are.

At the same time, they seem more disconnected to users than ever. In comments below/above you can witness the testament of their support. In their "feature request" threads you can see tens of thousands of (plex pass) users voting for something they feel important and have felt so for years (when the issue was opened) with no parseable reply. Put simply, their priorities (read: release/feature strategy) seems to be based on marketing impact.

I admire them for their insight into market as well as a lot of technology made look simple; like ssl for everyone[1] and a "just works" media scanner. It's just hard to see the forest these days.

[1]: https://www.plex.tv/blog/its-not-easy-being-green-secure-com...

Just a quick aside here, having not had to deal with Plex support before. Their support email is disabled, and honestly soured me immediately on the handling of this announcement. I realize that this is probably a trend, but emailing someone about an issue I will most likely want to talk about via a no reply address, then responding as follows is sure to run many the wrong way as I under no circumstances would like to join your forum:

As much as we would love to talk to every single one of our users, we are simply unable to provide one-on-one support via email.

This mailbox is not monitored

For Plex Pass-related billing issues, please visit our Plex Pass Billing contact form (https://www.plex.tv/contact/?option=plex-pass-billing). Fill out the information requested there and we’ll reply as quickly as possible, usually within 24-48 hours.

The best place to start for Plex support issues is our support site (https://support.plex.tv/). This site includes extensive documentation, guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting information.

If you are still encountering difficulties, please visit our support forums (https://forums.plex.tv/) to see if your problem is already documented. You can also post details there about the issue you’re having, and our staff or friendly community should be able to help you out.

If you're having trouble signing in to your Plex account, need a password reset, or have to unlock your account, please visit the Plex sign-in page: https://www.plex.tv/sign-in/.

Thanks for reaching out—hopefully we can get your issue sorted quickly and easily through these channels!

Plex on!

I wonder if they could tell if someone were to slowly but continuously feed crap data to their "statistics collection" servers. Especially if it were a distributed effort, spread across many machines and ISPs.

Could you just black-hole the collection domains or IPs?

Might work on the server side, might work on the client side if you only use the client via a VPN or on a network you control.

Probably wont work if you use a mobile client on a mobile network without a VPN.

Yeah, but that doesn't hurt the people trying to spy on us.

plex server is good, it's easy to set up and use,and the dlna it provides can be used by the native client in lg tvs.

Unfortunately this move is pointing towards a slippery slope, so: any usable, similar alternatives out there for linux?

https://emby.media/ is an open source alternative.

Kodi né XBMC (XBox Media Center) was the original foundation for Plex, Kodi is still going strong.

Plex was forked from Kodi back when it was still XBMC.[0]

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plex_(software)

I second Kodi! Emby is a more cloudy Plex alternative which I've considered, but not used.

I'm beginning to sound like a shill, but I use the thingy that came with my synology.

(No affiliation with them -- just a happy user)

[edit: should add that synology nas's run linux, and you get root out of the box. The media manager is a big ol' binary blob that's tied to their hardware]

Kodi - https://kodi.tv

Edit:

kodi is a bit more work to set up but after it is up and tuning it is fine, not as nice as flex by any stretch, but good enough

Only problem with kodi is (as far as I know, been a while since I've used it), you don't get remote streaming with multiple users.

AFAIKT, there's no real alternative if you rely on its mobile sync.