Spotify has come under fire for asking users of its family plan to prove their home address with GPS.
In an email sent to some subscribers of its ‘Premium for Family’ account users, the firm threatens ‘If you don’t confirm, you may lose access to the plan.’
Spotify says on its website that the two to five people on each family plan must live at the same address.
However, the move had come under fire online from users who claim many families do not live at the same address, with some living aboard or travelling.
In an email sent to some subscribers of its ‘Premium for Family’ account users. the firm threatens ‘If you don’t confirm, you may lose access to the plan.’
‘I‘m a user of the Family-subscription and can’t understand why you want to track the location via GPS?’ one user wrote.
‘Some families don’t live together, but they still are family.’
The move has also raised privacy concerns, despite a link in the email that take users to a series of pages that state, ‘Spotify will only use your GPS data to verify your location and nothing else,’ as well as an explanation on why the company is requesting such information.
Users took to Twitter to complain the move creates a ‘hostile user experience.’
Spotify told Dailymail.com ‘Spotify is currently testing improvements to the user experience of Premium for Family with small user groups in select markets.
The streaming service began offering the family plan four years ago, letting subscribers add up to five more users who reside at the same address for $14.99 monthly
‘We are always testing new products and experiences at Spotify, but have no further news to share regarding this particular feature test at this time.’
The streaming service began offering the family plan four years ago, letting subscribers add up to five more users who reside at the same address for $14.99 monthly.
Those users get the service as do individual subscribers to the $9.99 monthly Premium plan, which has no advertisements and lets you skip tracks and download music for offline listening – significant upgrades over Spotify’s free service.
Some said the decision could make them consider Apple Music, which has a similar family plan at the same price.
“Pretty aggressive,” is how Philip Battin, an executive at Google, characterized Spotify’s move on Twitter in his post showing the notice from Spotify.