Spotify wants access to your personal data

[IIOY]

Spotify’s Plans on Customer Data Use Meet Heavyweight Opposition

STOCKHOLM—Spotify AB wants $9.99 a month to stream music your way. Now it wants your holiday photos as well.



The Swedish music streaming company said this week it would gradually update its privacy policy, asking users for permission to collect their contacts, location data and photos.



In agreeing to the new terms, users would also grant Spotify and its business partners the right “to provide advertising,” the company said.



One prominent user, Minecraft creator Markus Persson, is fuming.



Mr. Persson, who became a billionaire after selling the videogame to Microsoft Corp. last year, attacked the policy in a volley of tweets directed at Spotify founder Daniel Ek.


“Feature creep for privacy invasion,” Mr. Persson, who has 2.4 million Twitter followers, said on Friday. “I want none of those features. I want to stream music.”



Spotify’s effort to collect user data beyond listening habits marks a shift for a loss-making company that promised its 20 million paying customers an ad-free experience in exchange for the monthly fee. In contrast, Spotify’s free users—about 55 million people, according to the company—have their playlists interspaced with ads.



It is unclear how much advertising Spotify is considering routing toward subscribers.



But the new user agreement and privacy policy suggests Spotify would attempt to blend advertising and subscription models, an approach that has helped sustain the television and news media industries in the past decades.



On Friday, Mr. Ek defended the new privacy policy: “Notch, have you read our blog?” he replied, using Mr. Persson’s nickname. “We explicitly will ask when using camera or GPS.”


Mr. Ek also released a statement saying he had heard users’ concerns “loud and clear.”



“We should have done a better job in communicating what these policies mean and how any information you choose to share will—and will not—be used,” he said.



Regarding photos, Mr. Ek said: “Those photos would only be used in ways you choose and control—to create personalized cover art for a playlist or to change your profile image, for example.”



The explanations did little to appease Mr. Persson’s fury.



“As a consumer, I’ve always loved your service,” he wrote. “You’re the reason I stopped pirating music. Please consider not being evil.”


Forwarding an angry message by a Spotify user who was saying he had ended his subscription, Mr. Persson said: “I just canceled mine too.”


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[secretlyevil]

Paying monthly fee should protect you from noisy businesses and advertising. If you can't pay to stream ad-free music than why bother paying for it in the first place?