Need to know
- Netflix gathers information about you in several ways
- For the most part, Netflix appears to be above board with its current privacy practices
- Netflix will soon introduce an ad-supported tier, which could change things
Likemost big tech companies, Netflix gathers and tracks information about you asyou use its service. Getting to know your viewing habits helps improve yourviewing experience by showing you more of what you like, but the data gatheringgoes further than that.
Youprovide some information yourself when you sign up, while other information iscollected automatically in the background. And then there's some that Netflixcollects from third parties.
Buthow does all thisdata gathering affect your privacy?
Welooked at Netflix's privacy statement and approached the company with anyquestions it raised. Here's what we found.
Informationyou give to Netflix
Whenyou sign up to Netflix, you provide the streaming service with data such as your name, payment method,contact information and phone number. If you choose to jump-start your recommendation algorithm, you can letNetflix know a number of titles you're interested in.
Youmight also participate in surveys or engage with customer support staff, duringwhich you offer additional information about yourself.
How Netflix recommends titles
It'sno secret that Netflix keeps tabs on what you watch so it can make recommendations basedon your personal tastes. It also tracks when you watch certain types of contentand for how long.
Thisinformation is used to decide which titles it includes in each row on a menu page.It also determines the order in which the titles are positioned (ranked fromleft to right), and the order in which the rows appear on the page (ranked fromtop to bottom).
Butwhen you use the search function, the results are based on what other userslooking for similar terms have selected, rather than your personalrecommendation algorithm.
Netflixdoesn't use socio-demographic data (such as age, race or gender) when making title recommendations.
Howto search specific Netflix categories
Netflix'ssuggestions can be accurate, but also restrictive. Browsing for content outsideof your algorithm can be time-consuming and frustrating if you use the userinterface as intended.
Ifyou'd prefer more direct control over the categories or genres you can peruse,jump on a web browser and use specific URLs to get your results. For example, netflix.com/browse/genre/10702 willgive you "Spy Action & Adventure". Replace the numbers at the end of thatURL with 5230 for "AustralianMovies" or 5349 for "HistoricalDocumentaries" and so on.
Tofind these search options, do a web search for "secret Netflix URLs" to discover plentyof websites with huge lists of categories to choose from. It's notcertain that any site has the complete set, and some links have been shut down overthe years (such as the sorely missed 8742"Cool Moustaches" category).
Hideyour viewing history and change your algorithm
Otherusers of your account can access your profile and see your viewing history,unless you lock your profile using parental controls.
Butyou can hide this information. Open Netflix via a web browser and go to Account. In the Profile & Parental Controls section, expand your profile andclick View next to "ViewingActivity".
Tohide a title, click the Hide icon tothe right of "Report a problem". You can also click Hide all at the bottom of the page to hide all your viewingactivity.
After24 hours of being hidden, a title will no longer be used to makerecommendations to you, unless you play it again.
Other dataNetflix collects
Netflixcollects non-viewing data from your interactions with its service and fromthird parties.
This data can include which devices you use, any devices on yourlocal network, IP address, interactions with advertising, rough location ateach login, and more.
Youcan request Netflix send you the information it has about you by visiting the Netflix Get My Info page.
We did this and the amount of information is extensive, but didn't appear to containanything alarming or unexpected.
Socio-demographic data
Thepersonal information we downloaded had no socio-demographic details such asage, gender, nationality, occupation, education, relationship or family status,sexuality or political preferences.
Theonly data of this kind Netflix appears to use is aggregate data for researchpurposes. This includes interviews and panels from people who consent toprovide information, but Netflix claims this is separate from their service anddoesn't include personal information associated with individual members.
Location tracking
Locationinformation seems limited to an approximation based on your IP address eachtime you use Netflix. We saw no evidence of the precise GPS tracking usedby other companiessuch as Google or Facebook, among others, via mobile deviceslike smartphones.
Netflixtold us it doesn't ask for or receive home addresses in connection with itsstreaming service.
Sharing your data
GivenNetflix doesn't appear to collect much personal information, there isn't toomuch to share.
Whenit does, this sharing seems limited to necessary activities such as linkingwith your internet provider, voice-assistant platforms, security and providingcustomer service, among others.
While Netflix's privacy statement can be vague, it doesn't specify some ofthe data gathering and sharing practices commonly used by big tech. Theseinclude things like precise location tracking, sharing personal details withthird parties for the purpose of advertising, and collecting and using anindividual's socio-demographic information to push content.
Netflixdoesn't appear to sell your data to advertisers, but there's noguarantee things will stay this way. The streaming service has announced plans to launch an ad-supported subscription tier for a lower price sometime soon.
Given how effective personal details can be for targeting people with curated ads, Netflix would be passing up a potentially large commercial opportunity if it didn't make use of the wealth of information it has, or could gather, about its users to boost the performance of this new ad-supported subscription tier.
Netflix hasn't confirmed how this ad tier will calculate which ads to display and to whom, so we'll have to wait and see.
We care about accuracy. See something that's not quite right in this article? Let us know or read more about fact-checking at CHOICE.
Stock images:Getty, unless otherwise stated.
