"You can find out more about the rights and controls Spotify listeners have in regards to personal data on our Data Rights and Privacy Settings page." "Spotify is committed to user privacy and works to provide transparent information about the personal data we collect and how it is protected at our Privacy Center," they wrote.
Song you should be here series#
Notably, Spotify takes pains to explain its data-gathering practices both on its privacy page and in a series of animated videos - a point emphasized by a company spokesperson over email. Spotify also says it may collect data - including non-precise location data and "inferences (i.e., our understanding) of your interests and preferences" - from third party "advertising or marketing partners." In the case of Spotify, that may include (but is in no way limited to) general location data, search queries, "inferences (i.e., our understanding) of your interests and preferences" gathered from "certain advertising or marketing partners," "motion-generated or orientation-generated mobile sensor data," and, of course, a list of every song you've ever listened to as well as how many times and at what time of day you played it (aka your "streaming history"). While the former category of personally identifiable information can absolutely be abused or mishandled, it's the latter category of data collection McKinney warned about - and that's often seen by users as the most invasive. "There are other things that other apps collect, that aren’t really necessary for the delivery of services or the thing that the user is engaging in." "There are ways that we engage with apps, services, and platforms online, and there is a certain amount of data that those apps, platforms, and services need to collect in order to do their job," she explained over a late March phone call. It's also not what concerns experts like the Electronic Frontier Foundation's director of federal affairs India McKinney. That sort of data collection is understandable. Think users' names, addresses, billing details, email addresses, and smartphone or other device information - stuff that Spotify needs to stream music to your ears and then bill you for that experience. Some of it is exactly what one might expect, and is relevant and necessary for Spotify to deliver its service. To understand why Spotify's data collection practices might be a matter of concern, it's first important to understand exactly what user data Spotify collects. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to limit what Spotify does with its vast repository of data points describing your life - or, at the very least, that make the company's effort to profit off your info just a tad bit more difficult.
Song you should be here free#
There's no need to passively hand over your valuable personal data free of charge as well.
If you're a subscriber, you already pay Spotify $9.99 every month. "Spotify uses the same surveillance capitalist business model as Facebook and YouTube: they harvest your data and sell access to it to advertisers who think they can use that data to manipulate you into buying their products and services."
What Spotify does with that data, and why that should concern you, are complex questions involving third-party advertisers, densely written terms of service, and inferences drawn from every piece of music or podcast you've ever listened to on the streaming platform.īut according to privacy experts, one aspect of this digital mess is absolutely straightforward: Spotify users should pay attention to how their data is used, and take the available steps to limit that use whenever possible.Įvan Greer, the director of the digital advocacy organization Fight for the Future and musician whose art has addressed this very subject, made that clear over direct message in early April.
Song you should be here full#
While Spotify customers are busy rocking out, the company has its metaphorical hands full profiting off the data that rocking generates.Īnd it generates a surprising amount. It sounds like the setup to a bad joke, but the wildly popular music streaming service in fact collects, stores, and shares reams of seemingly mundane user data, adding up to an intrusion that's much more than just the sum of its parts. Privacy Please is an ongoing series exploring how privacy is violated in the modern world, and what you can do about it.
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