Spotify is cracking down on family plan sharing again by asking for user locations
The plan is only for family members residing at the same address
- By
- on September 12, 2019 4:32 pm
Spotify is cracking down on family plan sharing again. According to a new set of terms and conditions for the plan that the company published back in August, Spotify is now requiring the primary account holder and everyone else on the plan to show proof that they reside at the same address, which it will now confirm from time to time by asking users to verify their addresses, as spotted by CNET.
This isnt the first time that Spotify has tried to crack down on customers taking advantage of family plan sharing. The company sent out a similar warning last year that asked users to confirm their exact GPS coordinates, but it ended the test shortly afterward, following privacy concerns.
Now, a slightly less invasive version of the policy is part and parcel of the terms and conditions for using the family plan. That suggests its here to stay.
As Spotifys fine print notes, the shared family plan which costs $15 and allows six users to access Spotifys Premium service is only for family members residing at the same address. New accounts will be required to verify their address using Google Maps, and Spotify may from time to time ask for re-verification of your home address. If you fail to meet those criteria, Spotify notes that it can terminate or suspend your family plan.
Its still unclear to what extent Spotify will be pursuing this kind of account verification or if it actually intends to cancel accounts that are violating the geographic limits. But the new terms do state that it can.
Family plan sharing obviously costs Spotify a lot of money. A Billboard report from last year claims that nearly half of all streaming customers are on family plans, which cost far less per user than the standard $10-per-month individual plans.
By cracking down on family plan members who arent living in the same home, Spotify is presumably hoping to drive those users to pay for their own subscription instead of glomming on to their old roommates plan from across the country. There is the possibility, however, that these customers might be driven to a competitors more lenient family plan, like Apple Music or even Tidal, that doesnt demand location verification.
Next Up In Tech
- Netflixs genre slate for 2022 includes The Sandman and The Witcher: Blood Origin
- ElonMusksays Raptor engine production is a disaster that putsSpaceXat risk of bankruptcy
- Twitter bans posting pictures of private individuals against their wishes
- Google engineers claim they were fired for following its dont be evil policy
- Razers Qualcomm-powered handheld console leaks
- How an Excel TikToker manifested her way to making six figures a day
Comments
If I were a customer, that would be the end of me doing business with Spotify.
By JediTed on 09.12.19 4:39pm
because they are making steps to make sure people dont abuse their service?
By niko_217 on 09.12.19 4:40pm
Because those steps unnecessarily violate peoples privacy. A music app should not be asking people to reveal their locations.
By Arc Logic on 09.12.19 4:44pm
Well its not. You can insert your adress manually and it checks that the adress exists through Google maps instead.
And lets be honest Spotifys family plan is extremely easy to cheat. Something like this was bound to happen.
Apple has an advantage because it requires you to have an i cloud family account which friends wont do.
By Jonozman on 09.12.19 4:55pm
Yup, just did that the other day. It gives you the option to use "automatic location" or you can enter your address on a google maps search bar and it locates the address you punch in. As long as you know the correct address to the account, you good.
By icethegreat on 09.12.19 6:17pm
You can insert your adress manually and it checks that the adress exists through Google maps instead.
Not that I disagree with your overall point but thats kind of like "revealing your location"
By Paul_M on 09.13.19 2:13pm
unnecessarily
I dont think it means what you think it means
By niko_217 on 09.12.19 5:43pm
Exactly.
By JediTed on 09.12.19 7:24pm
A music app should not be asking people to reveal their locations.
I think the problem here is that this is literally the only way to verify family plans are not being abused.
So given a binary choice between this and no family plan at all, I think I`ll take the family plan.
By scoob101 on 09.13.19 8:21am
I think giving your home address to a place that you do business with is a pretty low bar for privacy. I regularly have things shipped to my house by random internet companies, for instance.
By banker85 on 09.13.19 9:55am
I personally dont care whether people are abusing their service or not. I dont want them to have access to my or my kids locations.
By paxys on 09.12.19 5:38pm
Then I guess thats a trade-off youll have to make. They already have your billing address anyways. So if you were the conspiratorial type they already know where to find you.
By My Only Name Change on 09.12.19 5:44pm
Paxys now questioning all the services he pays for with a CC requiring a billing address.
By DougB541 on 09.12.19 6:50pm
this is incorrect. modern CC systems only validate zip code. if you wanted, you could technically just put in whatever street address you wanted so long as the ZIP of your card matches all your payments would still work and function normally. Requesting ones zip code for billing is far different than requesting the home address of someone on an intermittant basis
By prasantv on 09.12.19 7:14pm
he probably means dont want spotify to know other locations than the billing address
By version9 on 09.13.19 8:25am
you know they accept prepaid cards and PayPal to right?
By JesseDegenerate on 09.13.19 11:30am
So you dont get stuff delivered?
By merlotisred on 09.13.19 1:41pm
Does the reason particularly matter? Some people just find trading their persistent location data with them as a requirement to use their not-location-based service too steep.
By Nemesisprime on 09.12.19 7:00pm
Exactly this too.
By JediTed on 09.12.19 7:26pm
How have you missed what was written in the article and the comments here?
You DONT have to SHARE your location.
By Jonozman on 09.13.19 2:13am
Having kids that live in more than 1 household is not abusing the service.
By dsellis on 09.13.19 1:02am
Actually, it does. The TOS is clear. Spotify states this plan is for family resides at the same address. Yes your adult kids may moving away and thats when they should pay for their own subscription. Its fair and square and you have to give Spotify the consent to do so.
Otherwise you can discontinue using their service and take your business somewhere else. In the end it depends on how bad do you need Spotify?
By Jazzluvr on 09.13.19 3:40am
My kids are not adults and did not move away. They stay with me 2 days a week. Their permanent address is not listed as mine. So does my 11 year old daughter have to pay for her own subscription now? She doesnt meet your criteria of being an adult, moving away.
Im unsure if people are missing the point in this, either by accident or deliberately or theyre just trying to be cool and argue over the internet. Nobody is really arguing that they should be getting their 30 year old adult kid on their subscription. Thats not really reasonable. Were talking about families which arent just 2 parents and children under one roof.
My kids are actually kids. They are my family. If it is considered "abuse" to have my kids on my family subscription, then that tells me the Spotify subscription is unreasonable, and not me. And yeah sure, Ill take my business elsewhere should they decide to police families like this.
By dsellis on 09.13.19 4:43am
I would imagine in that situation they would have leniency. Of course the other option is to have their other parent open a family account with the kids on it.
By oscarnyc on 09.13.19 7:32am
Where are they staying for the other 5 days a week and Spotify doesnt check that they are at that location every day
By big-ted on 09.13.19 9:44am