The wildly popular music-streaming platform Spotify has grown to over 75 million subscribers, and many fans are complaining about Spotify’s invasive privacy policy.
In their article about Spotify’s invasive privacy policy, David Goldman and Hope King of CNN Tech describe how Spotify discreetly tracks locations, collects photos, views contacts, and shares the personal data of its users.
The mobile application asks for permission before collecting information from mobile devices. When you connect the app to Facebook, Spotify is able to collect and store your name, pictures, hometown, email address, date of birth, gender, and even the names and pictures of people in your network. The data that Spotify has access to is supposed to tailor and personalize the user experience. A Spotify Running update measures how fast you run using a GPS tracker and chooses songs with similar beats per minute to your running pace. Another new feature is Discover Weekly, which curates a new playlist every week based on your music taste.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek acknowledges the issues in a blog post titled “Sorry,” stating that the new policy “caused a lot of confusion about what kind of information we access and what we do with it.” The new policy is broad, but Ek has stated that user complains have been heard and updates are on the way.
You can continue to use the service and protect some of your personal data by opening the Spotify mobile app, clicking on “edit profile,” and unchecking the box that says “Yes, share my information with third parties.” However, the only way to completely prevent Spotify from accessing your information and tracking your location is to delete your account and stop using the application altogether.
