family accounts of the streaming services They are usually a very useful modality to save costs among members of the same family, however, these advantages are usually used to distribute accounts among users who, precisely, are not from the same family. This has allowed for the creation of a fairly large black market of accounts, so Spotify is taking steps to kill him.
The end of shared accounts on Spotify
As they point out in CNET, the new terms of use of the service has added a new heading in which those users with Family Plan subscriptions must of provide location data "from time to time", in order to guarantee that they really belong to the same family.
With this location data, Spotify will be able to know exactly if all the users who use the same family account are really living at the same address, which would mean that they are members of the same family.
This will obviously raise a wave of criticism related to privacy. The service has already temporarily tested this GPS location feature, and ended up shutting down the tests after seeing how users refused to provide the location. Still, Spotify will implement this location awareness fleeting, so we'll see how users respond.
At the moment it is unknown how many times and when Spotify will check where you live to prevent you from sharing an account, but what is clear is that this type of information could allow the company to know our daily habits, something that users would not be willing to share.
Either you live at the same address, or they cancel your account
The new conditions leave no doubts. The address of the users will be checked periodically, and at the moment that some type of irregularity is identified (users located in completely different places), the account will be canceled immediately. The terms and conditions of the service says the following:
B. After the activation of a subsidiary account of the Family Plan, the user will have to confirm his address.
C. It is possible that, from time to time, you will be asked to reconfirm the address, in order to verify that the requirements to access the service continue to be met.
We use the Google Maps address finder to help users find and set up their address. The address that the user enters when activating or confirming the address will be subject to the Additional Terms of Service of Google Maps and the Google privacy policy.
Spotify reserves the right to terminate or suspend access to the Spotify Premium Family Plan service and Spotify Premium Family accounts immediately and at any time if the user does not comply with the requirements and provisions of the Spotify Terms and Conditions of Use. .
What does Spotify gain by conducting this surveillance?
The reasons are more than obvious. While an individual Premium account costs 9,99 euros per month, Premium family accounts (Family Plan) cost only 14,99 euros per month, and can be shared between 6 users. If 6 completely unknown users share a family account, Spotify's losses multiply rapidly, since instead of getting $9,99 each, it would only get $2,5 each.
It is understandable that the brand wants to control these types of illegal practices, however, the measures it is willing to implement may not be too funny for customers. Will it bill you? With other offers like Apple Music y Tidal (which do not require location to share accounts), it is possible that many users switch sides in order not to give away their privacy.