TL;DR
- Amazon has begun blocking certain apps from its Fire TV platform for promoting piracy.
- The list of freshly blocked apps includes Blink Streamz, Flix Vision, Live NetTV, and Ocean Streamz.
- The disabled apps can no longer be used, and can only be uninstalled.
Following sharp criticism for failing to stop piracy on its Fire TV platform, Amazon has started blocking several streaming services that pirate otherwise DRM-protected content. The list includes at least four video streaming apps, including Blink Streamz, Flix Vision, Live NetTV, and Ocean Streamz.
According to two separate reports from YouTuber TechDoctorUK and AFTVNews, Amazon Fire TV devices display a warning message when these apps are either opened or newly installed via sideloading. The warning states that running these apps can “can put your device or personal data at risk.”
Besides the warning message, Fire TV devices also prevent users from opening these apps. The warning message is accompanied by Keep and Uninstall buttons (as shown above). However, the Keep option is grayed out, leaving Uninstall as the only clickable option. The Fire TV won’t delete the app automatically, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll start working again.
The message citing “personal data at risk” indicates Amazon is also focused on privacy, and suggests some of these apps may be malware. This is partially true for Flix Vision, which was found to be harvesting resources, such as the CPU on Fire TV sticks or smart TVs running Amazon’s interface, and allowing developers to profit from them. For the rest of the apps, the ban appears purely to block access to copyrighted content.
Nonetheless, Amazon hasn’t specified the exact reason for blocking these apps. We reached out to Amazon for comment and will update the article if we hear from them.
In recent months, Amazon has been severely criticized for its nonchalance towards piracy. Researchers at Enders Analysis recently accused Amazon (via the Independent) of allowing piracy on an “industrial scale,” while the UK’s Sky reportedly blamed it for failing to prevent illegal streaming that cost the broadcaster “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Sky’s chief operating officer Nick Herm also claimed more than half of the Fire TV devices sold in the UK were illegal jailbroken boxes. While eliminating jailbroken units may be a mammoth task, Amazon’s action would certainly give it some relief from the backlash.
