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Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

forbes.com

31–40 of 64 posts

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#32
post #3

Is this for real? I pay £10 a month to avoid this crap and now I'm lumped in as well? Screw this, I'm off to Apple Music.

"I pay £10 a month to avoid this crap" I don't understand this concept. I pay $10 a month get rid of ads, to be able to use the mobile app, and to get higher quality streams. There was never any reason to believe being a paid member had any impact on the data Spotify collects from you.

I notice two things: 1) why shouldn't Apple collect the very same data? 2) apparently users are willing to pay for privacy, that's pretty cool! Something like vysk will actually have some space.

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#33
post #22

Companies need to take a new approach to the permissions they request - especially on Android where these are explicitly shown to the user. Often there are innocuous purposes behind them, but it's rarely immediately clear and results in people jumping to conclusions. Companies should be more explicit as to the reasons they request permissions.

The good news is that from Android 6.0, permissions will be more dynamic: https://developer.android.com/preview/features/runtime-permi...

Apps can ask for permissions only if/when they are actually needed for a niche feature, and the user can reject or revoke each permission individually.

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#34
post #18
post #3

Is this for real? I pay £10 a month to avoid this crap and now I'm lumped in as well? Screw this, I'm off to Apple Music.

Why? Apple built your telephone ; they already know about your "contacts, photos, or media files." They know your GPS location, too. This reminds me of the quip about conservative folks threatening to move to Canada because they're unhappy about all the corrupting liberal values creeping into American politics.

Maybe that's part of the incentive. If Apple already have your data then you can't give it them twice. Better to limit the number of companies with access to your data to 1 by using the same company for everything.

This isn't a line of reasoning that appeals to me but I can see how you might want to go this route if you've already compromised on security and privacy to get a shiny new iPhone.

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to deezer. Waiting for android support for apple music. Spotify are gone for me when they ruined their desktop app.

> android support for apple music Is that a thing? I thought Apple Music existed only to push iDevices.

It's been part of Apple musics announcements since the very beginning

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I pay £10 a month to avoid this crap" I don't understand this concept. I pay $10 a month get rid of ads, to be able to use the mobile app, and to get higher quality streams. There was never any reason to believe being a paid member had any impact on the data Spotify collects from you.

It appears that the privacy policy makes several references to advertising. I pay money so I don't receive any advertising, so Spotify make no money from me that way. The part that concerns me is that my data can now be sold to someone else, with ever more excruciating detail about me. Thats the part that concerns me; I don't have an arrangement with those third parties.

My experience with panic about privacy policies is that they virtually always sound far worse than they actually are. For example, access to local files (contacts, photos, music) tends to be an all or nothing thing, and Spotify of course needs access to your local music files.

I also don't think they are selling your data to generate revenue. That's a baseless assumption at best and reckless fear-mongering at worst. The one area where many agree Apple Music has got the leg up on Spotify is music discovery. It's pretty obvious, to me at least, that Spotify wants to gather as much data as possible about what you listen to and how you listen to it, then have the freedom to pass that on to third-party data analysis companies who might be better than they are at identifying your tastes. The Discover Weekly playlist, for example, has been a big hit and was created by a company they acquired.

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#37
post #4

"Upon opening the Spotify app up this morning..." "FORBES contacted Spotify for a response and is awaiting comment." This tells you exactly how much time they waited for Spotify to respond. This is 'iterative journalism' at its worst: publish first, investigate later! Completely disgusting.

While interesting, it doesn't really matter what they had to respond. The focus was on the policy change, which was fact checked by presenting the document. Some reports don't need two viewpoints, eg as opposed to the normal he said vs she said.

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#39
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Forbes wait for comment, when Spotify didn't wait for their users? It's not as if this is something that took Spotify by surprise, like a data hack, that would require time to formulate a legally-sound response. They will have been planning and implementing this change for months. They could have issued a press release two weeks ago advising their customers of the upcoming changes, but didn't. Spotify seem…

Spotify does wait for the user's consent. That's the whole point of agreeing to the privacy policy. Apart from that, Spotify doesn't have anything to do with basic principles of journalism, because they are not journalists.

Any other substantive change to the terms and conditions require prior written notice. For example, slipstreaming in an app update that said 'from right now your monthly fee will be €20' would not be considered sufficient notice.

So why should privacy be Any different? In fact in this Cloud Era, privacy terms are probably of more concern to users than another dollar on their subscription.

The only reason Spotify didn't give prior notice was to put users in a bind on the spot.

Even Google manages to do it properly!

Re: Spotify Just Got Real Creepy with the Data It Collects on You

#40
post #26

When he talks about mobile app, does he talks about the iOS one? i have opened the app on Android, gone to the privacy policies and I don't see any of those things he talks about. I have privacy policy in Spanish

I had the new privacy policy appear when I opened the app this morning and had to accept it to continue. Probably just rolling out over time.
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