New Spotify privacy policy says it can collect data on location, sensors, and photos from your phone

Discussion in 'privacy problems' started by ronjor, Aug 20, 2015.

  1. ronjor

    ronjor Global Moderator

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    http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/08/20/spotify-creepy-privacy-policy/
     
  2. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    Totally ridiculous, I'm wondering when people will start to object against this kinda stuff.
     
  3. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Let me get this straight. Spotify is a music and video streaming service. So why this?
    I wonder if they intend to collect photos that users have selected, or all photos. And I wonder if they intend to take photos spontaneously. For market research. To see if people are smiling, maybe? Or how many are watching, for copyright enforcement? Bizarre.
     
  4. TheWindBringeth

    TheWindBringeth Registered Member

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    What passes for objection, these days? Posting a message of dissatisfaction on a facebook page? Tweating something? Sending an electronic message to a company's autoreply+bitbucket center? Uninstalling an app? A few minutes of time, then on to something else?
     
  5. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Not using tracking devices?
     
  6. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Why is people complaining? Almost every app you have installed on your smatphone can:

    * Record videos through your camera;
    * See your contacts;
    * See your messages;
    * Listen to your microphone;
    * See what's on your SD card;
    * Send internet traffic without your consent;

    And much more.
     
  7. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    So why do they call them smart?

    Is that relative to their users?

    ;)
     
  8. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    Somewhat related but on the desktop I have always recommended the use of the Spotify web client instead of installing the software locally. It's the same functionality without the need for trust.

    The same may apply for phones, I'm not sure how good the web client is on small screens however.
     
  9. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Obviously not ;) Humans, as a society, as a "mass", have never been smart.
     
  10. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    Thanks for the laughs, I've taken to calling them spy-phones. My 6310i is smart.
     
  11. PallMall

    PallMall Guest

    Music, or rater so-called music is everywhere, why would anyone need Spotify anyway?

    To focus on music I believe its trend is inflationary. A social phenomena which has often very little to do with Music. A big business when I happen to hear fine, true music in the Parisian subway and occasionally on the Web and then never on those Spotify-like businesses which are nothing but unhealthy pimps.

    To focus on the social out-coming of an increasing number of Web companies (started with Google and its unified status back in April 2013 was it?) which are no longer prude to declare their policy concerning our privacy, I think they've just come to the conclusion that the masses are ready to accept forgetting privacy issues when their dependency to the services is proven. Jagot, a French psychiatrist of other times (was it in the thirties or forties) wrote already then that when rationalism and emotion struggle it's always emotion that wins : so is it as well with all this so called social web, so is it with music, fashion, advertisements ... the idea is to create the conviction within the masses that anyone who doesn't participate to these planetary circles is out, out of the community, out of reality, out of life. I thing this is arguable, for the least.

    To focus on us, you and me and everybody, no need to be an expert to observe a fact which may authorize a recall : masses provide the funds and minorities the ideas.
     
  12. Dermot7

    Dermot7 Registered Member

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  13. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    False Alarm.

    https://news.spotify.com/us/2015/08/21/sorry-2/
     
  14. Right.... Spotify got caught with it's pants down and now tries to spin it's way out of it. I don't trust them.
     
  15. inka

    inka Registered Member

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    The representation in the "sorry-2" blog post, how does it compare to "necessary permissions"?
    Can you restrict/withhold certain permissions from the app & retain partial functionality...
    or it's "all or nothing", you're forced to set a policy granting the app all requested permissions else it won't install / run, period?

    I'm asking the above naively; I'm not a smartphone user.
    Someone mentioned "spotify web app instead" and that reminded me of the status quo dilimma of the various "modern" web browsers.
    With attention to minimizing attack surface, etc., I just cannot abide trusting a "web browser" which contains a means to connect to my mic/camera.
    If I want Skype, I install Skype. If I want Spotify web app, I'll install spotify web app. Increasingly, though, we're being herded into an "all or nothing" scenario.
    It would be ridiculous (unreasonable) to click a feelgood "don't access my mic" setting and presume that my TRUST will never be violated.
    So, here I stand, resigned to using an older, "less featureful" browser.
     
  16. driekus

    driekus Registered Member

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    Personally my approach is control the permissions of the app myself using a tool such as Xprivacy. Allows you to control access of the app to the system. I dont use Spotify but install many apps that try to access contacts. Xprivacy simply gives a bogus contact list when requested and similar principle applies to other permissions.
     
  17. subhrobhandari

    subhrobhandari Registered Member

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    The problem is, XPrivacy or other such apps, needs root to function. The majority of the users wont be rooting, due to issues like Warranty and non availability of guides. Most of the companies I know, dont honor warranty if the device was rooted, that is the major concern. The usual guides of rooting is available for most of the high-end and mid-end phones, but the low-end phones are usually ignored.

    The developers of Spotify and other apps which require such obscene permissions know this. They know, majority of the users wont bother to check and click allow to whatever settings they need. People have very short attention span these days, they would not even read all the permissions the app is asking for and after installing wont be bothered until the next time it asks for some additional permissions during app update. The users are going to be happy as long they can use the app, albeit at the cost of almost every exploitable privacy issues.
     
  18. elapsed

    elapsed Registered Member

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    My guess would be that the app itself will have settings to control what's enabled. Lots of apps have a "use location" setting for example.
     
  19. driekus

    driekus Registered Member

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    Not all need root to function. SRT AppGuard and App Ops by Lars team are functional without root.

    I think it is more a case that people dont care enough to stop the privacy encroachment. What percentage of people click Express Settings during a Windows 10 install rather than allow/deny each setting one by one.

    If there was greater demand for these apps there would be more options. I agree Spotify and others know that people will just accept whatever they are asked. I am sure most members here would be concerned enough to block the permissions or not bother with these privacy invading services.
     
  20. PallMall

    PallMall Guest

    I entirely agree.
    I read here and there that the youngest hardly care, maybe because they hardly know, the very meaning, importance, implications of privacy. Also, whatever the age and social categories, many if not most users simply don't care or if they do care, consider intruders to exist only through malware and just cannot imagine that a grand company -- moreover a country itself -- may be a privacy collector.
    Last but not least, the opt-in/opt-out mechanism where the latter is so often the argument held to advocate a true liberty indeed but in reality a trick to overcome pugnacity of gullibility : hence the battle of lobbies when default values are to be set as they know the stunning amount of users who will simply take things as they are without wondering on the consequences of their choices resumed to acceptance.
    That's the way it is. I'm not even convinced that I'd have the right to help anyone who doesn't ask for advice, guidance. I remember a teenager here in France who answered me "And if I want to forget my privacy, if I want to face the world, the planet, naked, in what is it your problem?" Yes, in what is it?
     
  21. subhrobhandari

    subhrobhandari Registered Member

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    SRT AppGuard repacks the APK removing the permissions. Most of the apps which request a lot permissions wont even open after removing a permission.
     
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