Fire Sticks just lost their 'most abused' feature as crackdown on illegal streaming intensifies
Amazon has taken the next step in cracking down on illegal streaming using their Fire Sticks by dropping the 'most abused' feature.
The market for illegal streaming continues to grow as an increasing number of people are using modified devices to watch paywalled content for free, and a new report warned that more Brits were seeing it as 'socially acceptable' given the rising costs of streaming.
Owners of these dodgy devices, which have particular apps 'sideloaded' onto them, have been warned they could be fined up to £50,000 if they are caught, and a number of suppliers have been targeted and arrested by the police.
There have been several prongs to the crackdown, with one of them being changes to the way people could access the illegal apps, with them getting the option to uninstall them, which has now progressed to outright preventing people from accessing apps flagged for piracy.
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Now the 'most abused' feature of the Fire Stick has been dispensed with, as AFTV News reports that Fire TV devices are now blocking the apps at the point of installation rather than access.
Basically, whereas you used to get your first pop-up blocking you from using an app flagged for piracy when you tried to access it, that block now kicks in at the start of the attempt to install them.
In a matter of weeks, it's gone from a warning that still allowed you to open the app to being able to install the app but not access it to just not being able to put it on the Fire Stick in the first place.
Not being able to load illegal streaming apps onto the Fire Stick would essentially stop those people trying to sell dodgy devices from using the Amazon product for such purposes.
It's a running battle between tech companies and illegal streaming operators to crack down on the ways it can be done, so this is the latest challenge posed to those who keep trying to stick piracy apps onto the popular gadgets.
Another measure Amazon introduced to tackle illegal streaming on their devices is a new operating system, Vega, which is designed to block sideloading of apps which have been identified as piracy.
Amazon will still allow developers to sideload apps which haven't been flagged and blocked.
That seems to be their approach to tackling illegal streaming; all apps can only be installed through the Amazon Appstore, and people won't even be able to download the ones which have been flagged for piracy.
Amazon aren't the only one that has been ramping up its crackdown efforts, as the BBC are reportedly looking at a new method to catch people streaming without a TV licence.
The Telegraph reports that the Beeb misses out on about £550 million a year due to TV licence dodging and could compare the data users put into iPlayer such as their email address and postcode with a database on which households are registered for a TV licence.
Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC Television, appeared to support the idea as he said: "It makes a lot of sense to use digital data to track who is using the BBC and who should be paying the licence fee.
"This is valuable but it’s a drop in the ocean compared with bigger questions about how the BBC funds itself in the future and survives amid global competition."
A spokesperson for Amazon said: "Piracy is illegal, and we’ve always worked to block it from our Appstore.
"Through an expanded program led by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a global coalition fighting digital piracy, we block apps identified as providing access to pirated content, including those downloaded from outside our Appstore.
"This builds on our ongoing efforts to support creators and protect customers, as piracy can also expose users to malware, viruses, and fraud."
Topics: Amazon, TV, Technology, Crime
Joe Harker