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You've Been Warned: Spotify Wants To Spy On You In Every Way Imaginable
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
I clearly remember the moment several years ago when my closest friend from NYC was at my place pleading with me to download and use Spotify. The pitch was compelling and I was open minded about the concept, until I learned that you had to login through Facebook to use it (no longer the case I believe). I immediately found this creepy and refused to use it.
Fast forward to 2015, and Forbes has come out with a very important article highlighting the incredible creepiness factor in Spotify’s new “privacy policy.” Here’s some of what it found:
Music streaming market leader Spotify has decided that it wants to know a lot more about you. It wants to be able to access the sensor information on your phone so it can determine whether you’re walking, running or standing still. It wants to know your GPS coordinates, grab photos from your phone and look through your contacts too. And it may share that information with its partners, so a whole load of companies could know exactly where you are and what you’re up to.
This has all been made apparent by a rather significant update to the Spotify privacy policy, pushed out to users today. Upon opening the Spotify app up this morning, your reporter was greeted with a request to agree to the new conditions. A quick comparison with the previous privacy policy using the Wayback Machine showed some major changes had been made. I’m now considering whether the £10 I pay for a premium membership is worth it, given the amount of privacy I’d be giving away by consenting.
Here are a couple of the key updates found by Forbes:
3.3 Information Stored on Your Mobile Device
With your permission, we may collect information stored on your mobile device, such as contacts, photos, or media files. Local law may require that you seek the consent of your contacts to provide their personal information to Spotify, which may use that information for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.
3.4 Location and sensor information
Depending on the type of device that you use to interact with the Service and your settings, we may also collect information about your location based on, for example, your phone’s GPS location or other forms of locating mobile devices (e.g., Bluetooth). We may also collect sensor data (e.g., data about the speed of your movements, such as whether you are running, walking, or in transit).
3.8 Spotify service providers and partners
We may also receive information about you from our service providers and partners, which we use to personalise your Spotify experience, to measure ad quality and responses to ads, and to display ads that are more likely to be relevant to you.
And here’s how Spotify says it shares information with advertisers and third parties, which provides some comfort on how identities are linked to the data that’s shared:
5.2.1 Marketing and advertising
We may share information with advertising partners in order to send you promotional communications about Spotify or to show you more tailored content, including relevant advertising for products and services that may be of interest to you, and to understand how users interact with advertisements. The information we share is in a de-identified format (for example, through the use of hashing) that does not personally identify you.
What’s equally perturbing is that it does not appear to matter whether you’re a paying customer or a freemium user. It should now be apparent to most that no web service is free – if you’re not paying in money, you’re paying in personal data. But Spotify doesn’t believe those who pay deserve a more private service. It seems there’s little option either to quit Spotify or accept the conditions of a company that has not only been questioned over its ethical treatment of musicians but will now face questions over its respect for customers’ private lives.
Anyone upset by these changes can send complaints to privacy@spotify.com
or send a letter to the company’s privacy representative by sending a letter to Spotify, Attn: Privacy Officer, Legal Department, 45 West 18th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10011, United States.
You’ve been warned.
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Wow that is fucked up. Back to Pandora for me.
SWATFLY. There. Dead.
So what is new?
Aren't these standard features that apple, google and microsoft offer? Total surveilance?
What is my googlophone not monitoring?
I quit updating apps on my android tablet, as every single time, every app wants more permissions that have absolutely nothing to do with the app itself.
Google Play game apps, for example, go so far as to store everything you do in the damn game in the cloud, and won't run without you logged in to Google.
So, I'm assuming that every app is selling you to whoever wants to own you.
My Blackberry recently was allowed to update to OS 10.3 (only a year late Verizon, thanks). This came with the Amazon Appstore as BB can run most Android apps.
Well, Blackberry is nice enough to show you exactly WHAT permissions each app wants, and you can check which ones you allow. Android apps will not allow any custom permissions. Either you give them all or you dont run it.
Funny, because made for BB apps tend to want access to things that help the app, like location for a map app.
Android apps want fucking everything under the sun and want to allow access to all that shit even when the app is not running (IIRC).
Needless to say, I have only 1 app on the phone that is worth that kind of intrusion. And I shut down the communication on the phone after I load it.
This Orwellian dystopia that people fucking embrace or brush off is mindblowing. Sure this is for ad revenue, but think about what that free app is costing you.
Guess I am a closet Luddite?
pods
I play music from CDs, cassette tapes, and from mp3 files directly. Don't need no stinkin app. There's YouBoob, and that's an exception you're either willing to or not willing to make, if you give any shits about metadata collection.
Nothing like lo-fi Van Halen blastin on tape. Thanks Patrick Swayze look-alike oldskool rocker for passing on your tapes to me.
I don't like smartphones or "apps." They don't have good intentions, though they may present themselves so.
This Orwellian dystopia that people fucking embrace or brush off is mindblowing. Sure this is for ad revenue, but think about what that free app is costing you.
Not just Orwellian - it's part of the Luciferian wet dream - to become "as a God on Earth" - to be Omnipotent (all-powerful), Omnipresent (everywhere at all times), and Omniscient (all-knowing).
I love new technology .... but hate that every shred of it is used by a small group of psychos to further enslave and terrorize humanity so they can wank off at their idea of being "gods."
I don't own a cell phone and probably never will. The world seemed to work just fine without them (even if the government d-bags did have the Infinity Transmitter back in the day). Not too fond of the idea of carrying a targeting beacon/bug around with me ;)
Big Data as "soil", Deep Learning as "seed".
What "plant" will sprout?
Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure you'll smoke it.
No, no. As Boris might say, "this weed smoke you".
http://www.nickbostrom.com/superintelligence.html
Be sure to read the conclusion.
The "Privacy Officer" in Spotify's Legal Department is actually a machine, not a person. A crosscut shredder. Save costs where you can.
Just uninstalled the app from my phone and laptop. Spotibyebye
Most apps are like herpes.........
Yeah, I'm going back to vinyl. I just have to figure out how to strap my turntable to my bicycle for those 50 mile rides I do a few times a week.
MAN THAT SUCKS, oh wait, I don't have a smart phone...never have, never will....and I'm 37 years old...smartest man in the room. Who's laughing now slaves
Do we have to bow to you or something or is general worship sufficient?
Bowing down and kissing the ring would be fine with me, thanks.
It's not a cock ring is it?
:)
pods
Same thing here. The funny thing is that I'm a software developer, and everybody keeps telling me how cool this or that technology is, and that I have no idea about how it works. Quite the opposite, actually, I know it pretty well.
In January, they interviewed Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden's lawyer in Russia. He said that his client uses a "normal" phone because he knows the security risks when using an smartphone.
I'm a software dev. that doesn't even own any cellphone, let alone a "smart" one.
I'm a software developer too (30 year experience)!
No cellphone.
No iToy
No Satellite Dish
No Cable
No Kids
No Neighbors
No Mortgage
No Car payment.
AND... NO JOB!!! ...oops..
Got an embedded programming job you need cranked out? Cheap rates!
30 years? Do you know COBOL? I read recently that there is still a huge amount of COBOL code running, particularly on IBM systems.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/50-years-and-still-going-strong-will-we-eve...
Duh. People were making fun of Rahm Emanual in that shortie documentary of Chicago a couple years back for using a flip phone. "who the hell uses a FLIP PHONE?" Who's the dummy now?
Oh yeah- think the Tony Blair fireball artwork, too.
Can't hack a phone that doesn't have an OS on it.
GPS.
I seen it on NCIS
Rahm Emanual might not be a dummy but he's still an asshole who helped bring about the Dear Leader Obama destruction of the USA. "Free shit for everyone - we'll just print more money!" We are all much poorer because of leftist policies. The bad part is yet to come.
The smarter the phone, the dumber the person holding it. Privacy is getting tougher to keep every day, but I'm not volunteering any more than I have to and I lie to the clowns who try to take it.....
"The smarter the phone, the dumber the person holding it"
Brilliant - I'm gonna steal that one :-)
I HAD a smartphone. For about a month. I found the design to be stupid...buttons on the sides, where you hold it, I was constantly accidentally hitting them every time I tried to answer the thing. The whole 'scrolling' thing was annoying as hell, and the sound sucked.
I threw it against a wall in frustration, and got a cheap flip phone. I'm going to use the smart phone parts to make a dollhouse miniature flat-screen TV.
You're not smart. You are wise. Grand Canyon's worth of difference too ---
I have a smart phone but I don't really understand apps as I have never downloaded one. My smart phone is very compact and allows for easy texting. My contract expired two years ago but the smart phones now are so big one might as well just buy a laptop. I like small things because I travel on a motorcycle and space is always at a premium.
I always pay cash whenever possible but on my last trip I found most hotels/motels want a credit card. Even though I settled in cash, my CC info would show that I stayed where I did.
Never collect airmiles, bomus points or any other promotion that reveals what I buy day to day. My late uncle was a tax agent doing field audits and he said some years back that he could tell someones income by looking into their refrigerator. Consequently I pay cash at grocery stores and if I have a discount card you can be sure all the info I provided was totally bogus.
In the past privacy was automatic and you had to make an effort to reveal yourself. Now you must make an effort to protect your privacy.
Any tips on how to get hotel rooms or airplane tickets without using a CC would be appreciated. I am really considering paper tripping to set myself up with bogus drivers license and CC's. The issue with that is it may result in summary execution if caught the way our society is going.
Silk road, and bitcoin.
But you will be labelled as a Pedo.
I just finally cut the cord a couple months ago, everyone in my social circle thinks I am insane. Getting rid of the cellphone felt extremely liberating, and saved me $120 to boot. People are so hopelessly addicted to their little e-gadgets, they all look like drug fiends jonesing for their daily fix of narcissistic "approval" via social media. Most recently, a girl I was seeing (who constantly checked her "likes" on Instagram whenever we were hanging out) caught wind of my plans to turn my cellphone off through a group of mutual friends. Her final text to me was this:
"Have fun going back in time and being a fucking asshole."
The day I finally stopped giving a shit about what people thought of me, my life improved exponentially.
Got bittorrent?
Damn. I'd rather be on the Ashley Madison list than for anyone to know I enjoyed the Little River Band.
(for the record, I don't btw)
Snap!
Brought to you by the same people who designed Windows 10 Share Your Password.
Don't forget the free security bugs with every copy......
Features. Security Features.
Dear Spotify,
I'm 6'2", 213 lbs, divorced and I have to buy anti-fungal cream for my feet. Evey wednesday I go bowling with Flint, and Moe. And on Saturday I go visit my dad in the loony bin...
There. you fucking happy now? You know everything about me....now fuck off.
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••<<<click here for Dad's Rights Attorney Services
••<<click here for all you can eat deep fried pork rines at Bennies Bowling
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**<<click here if you think it is rude for ZH to toss in an ad while you are entering a comment
Dont forget to auto-alert DHS that the aggression tendencies suggest terrorist threat/place on special surveillance.
Time for Spotify activists and an open source push for software that sends out random false info.
People have been polluting Facebook's database for years by re-tagging photos with fake names and identifying photos of department store mannequins and trees as actual people.
Or a paid app that lets you download profiles that your phone would send, so you can be Barack Obama, or Jared Fogle, Kim Kardashian or Caitlyn Jenner, as far as Spotify is concerned. I've already given this some thought ...
that's why i have a flipphone that works just fine.
nor do i have a faceplant account or a myspace or an instagram or any other social crap. Those pervs sell every detail about you. screw you. i'm not for sale. i won't use your product. i'll be perfectly happy without all the useless crap you "provide". a golf club. a fishing pole. some hiking boots. those things don't spy on me and sell me to the highest bidder or the NSA/FBI/CIA. fuck off pervs. you're worse than the subway perv.
So, download MP3s for free from basically anywhere on the internet or pay a monthly fee for the same basic content from a service that molests my privacy?
Golly gosh, that's a tough one.....
So, download MP3s for free from basically anywhere on the internet . . .
BitTorrent baby!!!!
Oh yes, there is a worm for that too! In no time at all everyone will know everything about everybody.
We have too many people on this rock. A die-off is inevitable. I don't mean to be so pessimistic but look at the world and tell me truthfully, it will not happen.
If you don't think this information is already available to any nefarious entity that wants it, you are fooling yourself. Even your flip phone is tracking you...maybe not in as much detail, but tracking you nonetheless.
"I’m now considering whether the £10 I pay for a premium membership is worth it, given the amount of privacy I’d be giving away by consenting. "
Considering?
This is our "digital world". Any piece of information you reveal about yourself online will most likely be stored on a database somewhere. Databases can be hacked.
Think twice before revealing anything, because if it can be used against you, it probably will be.
I started this 3 years ago with writing to the FTC and members of Congress, we need to license and index all data sellers, who in the hell are they? We don't know, US consumers are the Dupes of Hazard without this knowledge..there's a ton of links there and you can read all about who's collecting and selling your data. Just yesterday, Zero Hedge themselves wrote about the new company the banks are creating to scrub and denormalize consumer data, makes it easier to sell.
http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776
Look at what's done with selling prescription data and "scoring" you as an Outlier if you pay cash..actual conversation I had with a pharmacist that told the entire story. They are on pay for performance and have the responsibility of fixing Outliers. It's right in their software, we are Outliers. Nice stuff huh?
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/07/patients-who-pay-cash-when-filling.html
Nobody wanted to believe this 3 years ago when I said data selling and scraping would become an epidemic...it's easy money, you could almost equate it to how the HFT guys get in and grab money except the algos function a little differently..same thing, code hosing.
Blank Reg had the right idea(s)...
But without a smart phone how will I check my Facebook page at every fucking red light I stop at?
/s/
Damn you, Zerohedge.... privacy invasion is a matter of public and national security - When will you learn?
Stories like this keep making it harder and harder for the NSA to keep tabs on all those hip-music downloadin' terrorists out there.
WTF is a "spotify" and who the fuck cares.
You should keep this Spotify blogpost SORRY to cocerned Spotify users from CEO Daniel Ek if the new Privacy Policy gets missused and you like to sue them.
https://news.spotify.com/us/2015/08/21/sorry-2/
Log in through Facefuck??? Not me baby!! I have never had an account on Facefuck, Twit, Instacram or any other "social media" site and I am proud of it!! I also will NEVER use the "cloud" for any data storage as this is inviting someone to look at or steal your personal data. The whole thing is a HUGE SCAM and people that go along with this kind of shit are worse than sheeple!!
Good chance your brokerage & bank account information, payroll records, tax returns and medical records are already on the cloud.
But it is putting two and two together. Make it as hard as possible for "them".
Here's a rant I posted here back in January. Most things bear implications that are not obvious.
Post Liberation Society Has Exposed The Info-Serfs To Gross Info-Inequity With The Info-Lords
They can listen to all of our phone calls. Nearly every picture, mp3 audio, video recording, etc. contains hidden “steganographic” data about where it was taken (via GPS), the device's media access codes (telling where it was bought, often with credit card info, etc.). Just posting a photo with hidden personal info on the Internet can let “certain people” know everything about you! The info-lords know everything, while their activities are totally hidden from the info-serfs by security clearance secrecy.
Go to any Walmart anywhere; look up; see 300 video cameras, of course. You are going to be recorded by at least five of them at any given time in there, and you damn well know it. Or go serf-walking down Main Street; in many, many cities and towns you are now subject to being an observee to the info-lords. And you know it; you are an info-serf on a technotronic plantation.
Indeed, welcome to the mass observation culture, where an eleet ruling patrician observer class oversees the submissive subordinate observee class.
The wealthy info-eleet will be entertained by the spectacle of our misery. The relationship will be non-reciprocal with no info-equity at all. All information about the wealthy info-eleet will be classified Top Secret, and censored by the mediums that they control. so the info-pleb observees will never be allowed to know what the eleet are doing and enjoying.
So what are we waiting for? let’s even the score. Let’s outlaw all those cameras at Walmart and on city streets. Hire a few of us peasants to watch over things. Prices will go up a little, but very little. How much is it worth to you to be out of sight of the super-rich info-lords and their deputies, and not be an info-whore?
While we’re at it, lets demand info-equity! Lets demand that every room in the White House, and in every police station, everywhere, should have a camera and microphone, and that we should all be able to watch them all the time on TV. Why not? What good are their precious secrets? Did the protect us from 9/11? No. Did they protect us from the Boston Marathon bombing? No. It's a complete joke; their secrets can’t protect us from anything, and they are just too busy cashing in on their corruption to be bothered with our welfare anyway. They don’t need or want to protect us.
They’re too busy cashing in on their constant corruption to be bothered anyway.
Here is what is needed - a virtual machine on your phone. Use one for all the shitty intrusive apps. Have the VM feed bogus sensor data.
So if we have someone with a desire to get into a new market segment here is your opportunity.
Here is what is needed - a virtual machine on your phone. Use one for all the shitty intrusive apps. Have the VM feed bogus sensor data. . .
Great idea!! Any app developers out there that could help with this???
However...
That bogus data could place you at the scene of a bank robbery.
All apps need to be certified by the "store" aka .gov so you can't deploy such an app.
Or deep-sea diving in Aruba!
There was an android patch called PDROID Privacy protection, that gave the user full control on all permissions. It blocking any permission, or feeding bogus info to the app requesting it. All under user control. Alas it is no more being developed. Last version it's compatible with is 4.0.4
Heard on the radio today that FB is sending emails to people who use fake names on the site to change their name to the one that "is on your social security card". When I tried to sign up for Uber a while back it wanted all my contacts to complete the transaction so I bailed out of that (already had my damn card number). Signed up for lyft and they didn't ask for contacts but then they started showing me pics of my contacts and asking me to send them promotional texts.
Grrrrrrrrrrr, guess the other option is getting a DUI, asset forfeiture and an anal finger bang by the city's finest.
'Heard on the radio today that FB is sending emails to people who use fake names on the site to change their name to the one that "is on your social security card".'
Which one?
Appreciate the article. Fuck You Spotify!!!
Why the fuck can't you simply pay for and enjoy an application/service/etc. without them trying to fuck you in the ass all the time?
I just cancelled my subscription, deleted the application from my computer and deleted the app from my phone.
Buh Bye Spotify (stupid fucks)
.....glad I have a $7 "dumb phone". When I travel it gets plopped into a home made lead lined box about the size of a pack of cigarettes inside of my center console......yea, yea, yea... when I take it out to use it I am "tracked" again...I know.
dumbphone for me....
what is stupid is that you can carry a shitload of mp3's on a phone. why have cloud for music? every song out there is free to download.
....well, not to thread jack but wait 'till you get a load of Microsoft's 14 pages of fine print, the TOS for Windows 10.
Holy shit.
Only a criminal government need spy on the people.
Only a criminal company need spy on the people.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
? Benito Mussolini
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity..
I had no idea that Il Duce' was a Heb. Fucking BrainStem with Tourettes.
Simple solution - don't own a smartphone (oh, the heresy!); don't subscribe to services through apps; don't put anything you don't want the world to see on any electronic device; etc. Works well for me; should work well for anyone. Only when we stop consuming like sheep will businesses get the message that we're tired of surrendering our privacy. As long as we submit, 'they' will exploit.
"It wants to be able to access the sensor information on your phone so it can determine whether you’re walking, running or standing still."
Land line.
They're becoming much less available..landlines that is.
If anyone wished to resist, you'd simply not use smart phones, and return to desktop/laptop if you must to take care of business.
Also, how about upping your use of cash for purchases and check writting for utilities, house, and car payments.
I suppose only a small minority of even the Great and Grand resisters of ZH bother, when they can just blame Jooooooos for the disruption of the Universe, eh kchrisc? Fcking CAIR rectum snooter.
root, hack, jailbreak your phone, for gods sake, if you have to use apps....