A brand-new change to streaming music service Spotify’s user conditions is no doubt going to stand out as an extremely creepy way to introduce big brother monitoring activity to civil rights enthusiasts as it rolls out this fall.
New reports from CNET show that Spotify has now implemented mandatory location data sharing for users on its Premium Family service.
Ostensibly, the company claims it is monitoring locations in order to make sure that people don’t abuse the family service, which is supposed to be for individuals who live at the same address.
However, the periodic collection of location data is troubling for consumers who don’t feel the company should have all of that power to check in surreptitiously.
An original plan required exact GPS coordinates for users, but a pilot program has now been modified after customers complained, according to CNet coverage of the effort.
Still, many are skeptical about whether a recommendation engine and music service spying on users’ locations is going to be the best way to make sure that people don’t misuse the premium family plan.
In addition to the obvious concerns about privacy, critics argue that there will be all sorts of situations where location data is different due to legitimate mitigating factors, and that’s going to open up a whole additional can of worms.
“There are two ways this may spark controversy for Spotify,” writes Stuart Dredge at Music:Ally. “First: the definition of families as having to live in the same household, from teenagers shuttling between the homes of divorced parents to 18 year-olds heading off to university – even if Spotify’s view would be that this is the point where they can switch to their own student account. Second: the question of how many family-plan users are younger children who’ve been added so that their listening doesn’t start messing up their parents’ Discover Weekly – anecdotally, this is a common thing. Spotify is clear that the minimum age for a family-plan account is 13, so parents who’ve given a fake birthdate so their younger children have less of a leg to stand on when complaining about location data being collected. But even collecting GPS data on 14-15 year-olds risks being seen as overreaching.”
Here’s what the ACLU has to say about location monitoring on its web site:
“New technologies can record your every movement, revealing detailed information about how you choose to live your life. Without the right protections in place, the government can gain access to this information—and your private life—with disturbing ease.”
Stay tuned as Spotify, a popular way to conveniently enjoy your favorite music, attempts to get buy-in from a wary public.
