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Comment by greggman | Hacker News Reader

maybe it's just me but I really hate being tracked by what TV shows and movies I watch.

I also hate the suggestions and that I can't edit them and ban them. I don't know why it bothers me less on the computer with say YouTube. possibly because I can open YouTube links in an incognito window when I don't want it to be part of my profile.

Let's say some show that stars some actor I detest for whatever reason , or some show I detest because of what it's preaching. It will be the first thing I see on my large TV every time I turn it on.

Imagine if every time you turned on your TV you were present with a picture of your ex with whom you had a bad breakup and no way to take it off the TV except to wait for Netflix to stop recommending it. I get that type feeling from almost no where else.

Needless to say I canceled my account.

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I see this was downvoted, not clear why.

Let me point out that a video store telling someone what videos you rented was outlawed

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

In other words, I'm not the only person who thinks others shouldn't be able to know your video watching history.

I'd personally like to see it outlawed that sharing a profile of your video watching history also be outlawed. In other words, while the law above is about the actual movies I don't want Netflix (or any other company) to be able to share even the type of movie. It's one thing for Netflix to use that data to recommend movies. It's another for Netflix to be able to sell a profile of me (likes action movies) or likes (likes sexploitation movies) or (likes movies with LGBT themes).

That last one I think really makes the point clear. Netflix should not be able to out you to other companies and that means it should be illegal for them to share your profile even if it doesn't include your actual watching history.

I'd argue the same should be true for Google. They should probably be allowed to profile you and then let advertises say "I would like to target my ads to people who fit profiles X, Y, and Z" but Google should not be allowed to share that profile outside of Google.

>I also hate the suggestions and that I can't edit them and ban them. I don't know why it bothers me less on the computer with say YouTube.

This bothers me way more on YouTube because all the thumbnails are just people pulling "The YouTube Face" because its a form of clickbait that works well with kids.

Watch one video about PCs and YT will spam your recommendations with Linus Tech Tips pulling childish faces till the end of time. Same goes for Videogames and PewDiePie, Minecrafters or whatever.

Blocking the users has no effect on the algorithm.

"I also hate the suggestions and that I can't edit them and ban them."

If you thumb down a suggestion it will usually disappear from the suggestions list. Also, if you keep getting suggestions based on something watched that you didn't like, you can edit you viewing history and remove it.

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