Spotify is planning to put a stop on the abuse of its shared subscription option with the periodic checking of members' home addresses.
It's the company's attempt to prevent groups of people who don't share the same address from availing of its affordable family plan.
Spotify's Premium Family Plan
According to the updated terms and conditions for the Spotify Premium Family plan, the company will be asking members for the re-verification of their home addresses from time to time to ensure their eligibility for the plan.
Spotify uses Google Maps to help users find and set their home addresses for activation and re-verification with the company stating that this address is subject to the Google Maps Additional Terms of Service and Google Privacy Policy.
The Spotify Premium Family plan is the audio streaming company's shared plan, allowing up to six accounts to share a single premium plan for $14.99. This means that for just $2.50 per person, a group can enjoy all the advantages of an ad-free premium plan that typically costs $9.99 per individual.
The plan is meant to be "for families residing on the same address." However, it is such a cheap deal that it has become common practice for friends to form groups in order to avail of the plan, despite not being technically eligible.
Privacy Issues
As Digital Trends noted, it's not the first time that Spotify has tried to crack down on ineligible Premium Family plan subscribers. In 2018, the company began asking members for their GPS coordinates to verify their locations, but it stopped when privacy concerns surfaced.
The new attempt of the company appears to be more permanent as it appears in the terms and conditions, but some critics are saying there are concerns over privacy with the new policy.
"The changes to the policy allow Spotify to arbitrarily use the location of an individual to ascertain if they continue to reside at the same address when using a family account, and it's unclear how often Spotify will query users' devices for this information," Christopher Weatherhead of the UK watchdog group Privacy International told CNET, adding that there are "privacy implications" that could be worrying.
Weatherhead also brought up concerns of inadvertent tracking of children who may be part of the family plan.
"It seems excessive to permanently track individuals for this purpose," he said. "Additionally, it poses the problem of Spotify inadvertently tracking children and minors, who aren't legally able to consent or object."
Spotify assured users that the location data collected is encrypted and can be edited by the users as necessary. According to the company, the data will only be used for verification and will not be stored nor tracked at any point.
