Spotify & Data Privacy

-- By Dan Carlston - 11 Mar 2022

Introduction

The music streaming giant Spotify has undeniably transformed the landscape of music in the 21st century. In an industry facing rampant piracy and accessibility issues, Spotify quickly became the dominant force in the market by making music streaming accessible and bringing innovative adaptive playlists and social aspects of music listening to the general public in a digestible package. Spotify also cornered the market on podcasting and has become the most popular podcasting platform for content creators.

Like every large corporation which has such a strong hold over the general public, Spotify’s grip on the music and podcasting world necessarily consolidates power over its users. This has broad free speech implications as well as questions surrounding music “ownership” and access to music and entertainment.

Censorship via Content Policies

Spotify has received criticism over the years for various controversies regarding its inconsistent application of its content policy in regards to removing material from the platform, particularly its Hate Content and Hateful Content Policy. Two high-profile examples include the removal of R. Kelly’s music and Joe Rogan’s podcast from Spotify.

Both these figures received backlash from the general public as a result of their personal controversies – in the case of R. Kelly, long-term accusations of sexual misconduct, and in the case of Joe Rogan, the use of the “n” word in previous podcasts and interviews throughout his career. Wielding its oft-criticized “hate content” and privacy policies, Spotify removed both Kelly’s and Rogan’s content from its database for at least a brief period. While neither man necessarily deserve sympathy for their removal from the platform, the practice of Spotify essentially exercising its own discretion in removing their content speaks to the inconsistency of Spotify’s privacy policies as well as the power that consumers have handed to companies like Spotify to curate what music, entertainment, and learning looks like in the digital age. Removing an artist from a platform as ubiquitous as Spotify is tantamount to censorship, and it is difficult to determine what Spotify’s role should be in policing the content on its platform. At the time of removal from Spotify’s playlists, neither Kelly nor Rogan were convicted of any crime, while Spotify continued to host the art and content of convicted criminals and other controversial figures. This sort of selective enforcement of privacy and content policies is typical of tech giants like Google and Meta, who fashion broad provisions into their legal documents and wield that power to control what content can exist on platforms that have evolved into de-facto news outlets for the general public.

Data Collection and Surveillance

The type of data that a music streaming company like Spotify collects on its users may not be as immediately alarming as the personal data that companies like Meta and Google collect on their user bases, but its ubiquity as a service for the general public has its own set of pitfalls. Spotify undoubtedly has access to information on every single song or podcast any of its users has listened to, when they played and paused each track, their particular tastes, and oftentimes, their mood or feelings when listening to any piece of media. Consumers may not always be worried about these developments, as people enjoy Spotify’s adaptive playlists and dynamic ability to find music that matches people’s individual tastes, and would gladly give their information in order to improve that service. However, consumers should be careful about how this data can be used to enhance and refine the tracking and surveillance capabilities of big tech companies. The dystopian possibilities of the company keeping careful tabs of your location and mood based on the playlists you listen to, targeting ads at you based on your emotional state are already somewhat of a reality: in 2021, Spotify got a patent approved that essentially allows them to suggest content based on emotional state, age, gender, and even accent. This information can be combined with voice recognition and geographic metadata to paint a disturbingly accurate picture of a person’s whereabouts, activities, and feelings at any particular time, a prospect as scary as any other social media app out there.

As a final point, the migration of all music listening and access to Spotify surely has ramifications on how people consume music in general. When Spotify goes down, millions across the world lose a crucial part of their everyday life and often have no access to their own collection of music. While Spotify’s ease of use and high-quality product have an undoubtable allure, it is worth it for consumers to consider what alternatives exist for accessing music and the value of the personal data being exchanged for the surface-level convenience of the music streaming platform.

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