Movies Anywhere Puts Your Digital Film Library In One Place, But It Comes At A Silent Cost

Disney has expanded the power of its Movies Anywhere digital locker service with the addition of several major Hollywood studios in an attempt to make their mark on the streaming world. Previously, the service allowed those who purchased Disney--or Marvel or Lucasfilm--movies on Amazon Video, iTunes, Google Play, or Vudu to house them all in a single app.

Now, with the overhauled Movies Anywhere service, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Entertainment are also joining the party. Any movie from those studios that you bought from a supported digital outlet can now be transferred to Movies Anywhere. Instead of shifting back and forth between apps for Amazon Video, Vudu, iTunes, and Google Play, the purchased films can all now be accessed in a single place.

That means, if you purchased Spider-Man: Homecoming on iTunes, you'd be able to watch it through the Movies Anywhere app on your Android device. It's a nice touch for an app and service that is being offered free of charge on supported devices and web browsers.

However, you might be wondering how Movies Anywhere will profit if its giving away its app for free. The answer comes in the form of monetizing your data--a process that becomes more normalized every day.

Movies Anywhere collects just about any data on you that it can while you use the service, from your viewing habits and activity information to the information you publicly post within the service. Per the Movies Anywhere privacy policy, information can also be collected from any social media accounts you log into, "including your email address, telephone number, birthdate, user ID or username, and password associated with that service."

Additionally, the privacy policy outlines exactly who it can share the information with, which is many entities--participating studios, digital retailers, affiliates, service providers, business partners, and those that administer contests on the service just to name a few. "We may share information collected from or about you with carefully selected companies, including advertisers, content licensors, distributors, and other companies that are not affiliated with us," the policy reads.

Once shared, "the information received by such business partners and other third parties becomes subject to their respective privacy practices and policies." What that means is depending on the privacy policies of whoever bought your information, it could theoretically be shared once again to someone else. The policy also notes that Movies Anywhere can use your information to "detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may in our sole discretion violate our policies or be illegal."

Should you choose to give Movies Anywhere a try, it's available on Amazon Fire devices, Apple TV, iOS devices, Android TV, Android devices, Roku devices, and web browsers.