Spotify demands family plan users’ GPS data with threat to end service

guest · Sep 28, 2018

Spotify demands family plan users’ GPS data with threat to end service
September 28, 2018
https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/28/...an-users-gps-data-with-threat-to-end-service/

Music streaming leader Spotify has threatened to cut off service to some customers and is demanding that they confirm their home addresses with GPS data or risk losing access — a move that has upset users and raised personal privacy concerns, according to a Quartz report.

The controversy concerns the unauthorized use of Spotify’s $15 monthly “Premium for Family” plan by friends or even family members who don’t live at the service purchaser’s home.

But service provider audits of shared family accounts are uncommon, and from customers’ perspectives, generally unwelcome. Streaming companies such as Amazon, Apple, Hulu, and Netflix generally permit or specifically sell services offering multiple simultaneous streams and typically don’t shut down accounts based on use from different locations.

The company claims that it will solely use the GPS data to verify the user’s location, “and nothing else.”
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mirimir · Sep 28, 2018

I guess that makes sense. I mean, I'd never use Spotify, because they collect so much data. So what's a little more, as long as you trust them? They just want to know if your "family" are really family. But on the other hand, going from geolocation seems iffy. What about roommates? Or renters? And what about family who are separated, for some reason or another? Maybe (to pick a patriotic example) troops on assignment? Are they then not "family"?

guest · Sep 12, 2019

Spotify is cracking down on family plan sharing again by asking for user locations
The plan is only for ‘family members residing at the same address’
September 12, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/12/20863066/spotify-family-plan-sharing-location-terms-conditions

Spotify is cracking down on family plan sharing — again. According to a new set of terms and conditions for the plan that the company published back in August, Spotify is now requiring the primary account holder and everyone else on the plan to show proof that they reside at the same address, which it will now confirm from “time to time” by asking users to verify their addresses, as spotted by CNET.

This isn’t the first time that Spotify has tried to crack down on customers taking advantage of family plan sharing. The company sent out a similar warning last year that asked users to confirm their exact GPS coordinates, but it ended the test shortly afterward, following privacy concerns.
Now, a slightly less invasive version of the policy is part and parcel of the terms and conditions for using the family plan.

It’s still unclear to what extent Spotify will be pursuing this kind of account verification or if it actually intends to cancel accounts that are violating the geographic limits. But the new terms do state that it can.
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