The notice said that Spotify could ask for location data to check for fraud "from time to time" but didn't specify when or how frequently those checks would happen. It's also overlooking the privacy concerns with giving your location data away, experts said.Īnd this won't be a one-time scenario. It overlooks families that aren't living together, whether it's because kids are off to college or they have separated parents. #Spotify contact us verification"Once verification of a family member's home address is completed, we do not store their location data or track their location at any time," a Spotify spokesperson said.īut there are some flaws in this methodology. Spotify said it doesn't use that home location data for advertising and that it doesn't store the data for internal use. Every person added to the plan will have to do the same, or enable location services for Spotify on their devices, the company said. Once you sign up for the family plan, Spotify will ask those on the plan to provide the company a home address using Google Maps. "The location data that is collected during Premium Family account creation is only used by Spotify for that purpose." "This data is encrypted and can be edited by the plan owner as needed," the company said in a statement. Spotify, whose premium service doesn't serve up ads, maintains that it's only using your location data for verification. Its closest competitor, Apple Music, has 60 million subscribers. With 108 million subscribers, Spotify is the dominant force in streaming music. In New York, lawmakers are considering a bill banning apps from sharing people's location data within the city. Even when the data is anonymized, location data is often so specific that it only takes a few steps to figure out who the coordinates are linked to. Location data is particularly sensitive, as it hands out information on where you've been, giving companies and advertisers details about your personal life. "The changes to the policy allow Spotify to arbitrarily use the location of an individual to ascertain if they continue to reside at the same address when using a family account, and it's unclear how often Spotify will query users' devices for this information," said Christopher Weatherhead, technology lead for UK watchdog group Privacy International, adding that there are "worrying privacy implications." Now it intends on rolling the location data requests out fully, reigniting privacy concerns and raising the question of how much is too much when it comes to your personal information. The company tested this last year and asked for exact GPS coordinates but ended the pilot program after customers balked, according to TechCrunch. The family plan terms rolled out first on Aug. You have 30 days to cancel after the new terms went into effect, which depends on where you are. So in August, the company updated its terms and conditions for Premium Family subscribers, requiring that they provide location data "from time to time" to ensure that customers are actually all in the same family. But the streaming music giant is concerned about people abusing that plan to pay as little as $2.50 for its services. The only condition is that they all live at the same address. Premium Family is a $15-a-month plan for up to six people. It's part of an effort to detect fraud and abuse of its Premium Family program. Spotify will also want to know where you live or to obtain your location data. Spotify knows a lot about its users - their musical tastes, their most listened-to artists and their summer anthems.
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