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| Spotify knows more about you than you can imagine |
When it comes to online advertising and tracking, people always think of Facebook and Google. Indeed, these companies are undoubtedly the most prominent in this field, but Spotify seems to have the ambition to compete with them and is well qualified to do so.
Every day, millions of Spotify users listen to music on their smartphones, tablets, and computers. Then they continue to hear this music on all the devices and even transfer the music from one device to another.
Thus, Spotify server receives more than 100 billion data points from these users every day.
Spotify app data tracking
Each small unit of data is enough for Spotify to learn more about users. This data includes the songs we hear more often, the way we hear them, the frequency we listen to, and the user's listening activity.
As Spotify officials said, this data is used to understand users' tastes, feelings, and mindsets. This enables the company to target ads in a professional manner.
The popular music streaming app currently has more than 365 million active users. Of those, 165 million sign up for a paid plan, so they don't hear ads, while 200 million users hear ads and use the app for free.
What do you know about yourself
Everything that users do in the web version, PC applications and smartphone applications is monitored by the company. This includes searching for songs, podcasts, playing and pausing songs, random playlists, and more.
For example, Spotify knows that you searched for songs related to the breakup, then searched for a playlist of similar songs from the same month and spent two hours listening to them.
And because the music users listen indirectly reveals their feelings and experiences, it helps Spotify fans with personalized ads, not to mention the information it contains about you while using it.
Spotify discloses its practices in its privacy policy, but the policy is 4,500 words and one expert described it as difficult and unclear language.
If you use an external method (like Facebook or Google) to connect to the app, Spotify is getting stronger. After registering in this way, Facebook will receive some basic data.
What can you do
There are some basic steps you can take to limit Spotify's functionality by collecting and tracking your data on the one hand and protecting your privacy while listening on the other.
The first of these steps is to use Spotify in private session mode, which can be activated via the "Social" option in Settings. However, you have to enable it every time you open the app.
On the flip side, the company previously stated that what you listen to in private sessions may not have any impact on your music recommendations, which means that the company doesn't track those sessions.
The basic option must be activated on the PC platform. It can be found under "Settings" and under "Show advanced settings". With this option, you can unblock cookies and prevent them from being stored.
Spotify has many other options, but only through their website. All you have to do is open the site and go to the privacy settings via this link. On this page, you can deactivate all data collection options, such as personalized ads and Facebook data.
The first helps Spotify display relevant ads by tracking your data, so it should be turned off. The second prevents it from accessing the information in the Facebook account when it is closed.