One example of a brand that asks for a little too much for no reason is Spotify. For Premium users who are already paying subscribers and do not have ads, it doesn’t make sense to give Spotify more information than what is necessary for your listening experience.
What Types of Data Does Spotify Gather?
As detailed on Spotify’s support website, Spotify gathers several types of data for each of its users. This data ranges from ones necessary for account access to those meant to improve listening experiences.
For example, Spotify needs to know your email address, payment information, and home address for subscription-related processes. Additionally, Spotify consolidates information about your streaming history, playlists, podcast interactions, and more to build your personalized recommendations.
While it’s true that some information is justifiable to use Spotify, there is another subset of data that seems unnecessary for paying users: inferences. Inferences are how Spotify categorizes you as an individual, which is derived from two sources: Spotify usage and data obtained from advertisers.
Through inferences, Spotify and advertisers work together to categorize you into market segments. As your data is brokered across platforms, your customer profile is refined and supposedly used to serve you better ads.
Now, if you already pay for a Spotify subscription and don’t have any ads, why would this data be necessary? The short answer is, it is not. By enabling data gathering procedures that validate inferences, you are essentially allowing Spotify and advertisers to acquire data with nothing in return.
How to Download Your Data on Spotify
If you’re curious to know what Spotify and advertisers have inferred about you as a user, there’s a quick way to find out. On the Spotify website, go to Privacy Settings > Manage Your Data > Download your data.
There will be three steps to downloading and viewing your data: requesting, waiting, and receiving. From these three steps, you only need to activate the first one by clicking Request.
Afterward, you will receive an email from Spotify to confirm. Spotify will message you a link to download your file within 30 days. Once you receive the link, you can download the spreadsheet and read through what Spotify has inferred about you.
How to Ask Spotify to Delete Your Data
After downloading your data file from Spotify, you may be uncomfortable with the data it has gathered about you. To prevent Spotify from sharing your data with third-party advertisers, you can disable the tailored ads.
To disable tailored ads, go to Privacy Settings > Manage Your Data > Tailored ads and then toggle the Process my personal data button to the left. Once you have done this, the next step is to remove access from other apps with access to your Spotify data.
How to Stop Other Apps From Accessing Your Spotify Data
There is an endless list of reasons why you should stop Facebook from sharing your data with Spotify.
Facebook has a history of giving advertisers and partner brands, including Spotify, invasive access to its users personal information such as friends lists, posts, and personal messages. To keep your Facebook and Spotify accounts separate, go to Privacy Settings > Manage Your Data > Facebook Data.
Then, opt-out of Facebook data sharing by disabling the Process my Facebook data option. Once you have done this, the next step is removing access from individual apps.
To keep other apps away from your Spotify data, go to Profile > Account > Apps. From there, select Remove Access.
Protect Your Privacy on Spotify
When it comes to data privacy, taking small steps to ensure your safety should be par for the course. While a music streaming site collecting and sharing data about you doesn’t seem like a big deal, you never know what this data can be used for in the future.
As companies increasingly find ways to take money out of your wallet, your future self will thank you for keeping your cards as close as possible to your chest. After all, the fewer advertisers know about you, the less likely they serve you ads when you’re ripe for temptation.
