Trakt is a normally legitimate service, which gives its users the ability to track their viewing habits for TV shows and films through a variety of services – XBMC, Popcorn Time being among the more popular ones. And while the service has been enjoying great popularity, with more and more people starting to use it, there is one problem which has gone largely unnoticed so far – pirates may be unwillingly broadcasting their complete viewing habits to various copyright holders around the world.
By using the service, users can track what shows and films they’re watching, and record them in a database for their own profile – sort of like what Last.fm does for music. Users can either add what they’ve watched manually, selecting shows and films from a list or they can download a tool that automatically scans various supported applications and tracks what you’re watching through them, then submits that information for you.
While this sounds useful, it also poses a potential security risk for those whose content is less than legitimate. The default setting for Trakt is that a user’s profile, and their entire viewing history, are public and accessible for anyone. Which means that those who’re using the service are broadcasting their entire set of viewing habits, unless they’ve explicitly disabled the feature.
How is that a problem though? The site still doesn’t explicitly say if the content a user is watching is pirated or legitimate. However, for certain releases, it’s blatantly obvious. Reports indicate that the current top charts in Trakt are showing various films which are not supposed to be available for home viewing yet, as they’re still only running in theatres. This obviously means that users who’ve logged these films in their accounts are watching pirated copies of them. And some of those users are quite open about sharing their personal information on the website as well, which, depending on where a user lives, could potentially lead to serious issues later on.
Examples of such incidents include “Interstellar” – according to the service, various users have watched the film through XBMC and Infuse. “Lucy” can also be found with lots of viewers on the website, most coming from Popcorn Time. Considering that the app has been primarily associated with giving users access to content of legally questionable nature, it’s understandable that it would be present in these charts. Users who’re concerned about their privacy should definitely consider disabling the public broadcasting features on their Trakt profiles. And in the end, it’s a bit strange to consider that people would use a service like Trakt when watching pirated films, at least those that care about the legality of it all.