UPDATE: Spotify has now ended the test requiring members of some Family plans to provide their GPS co-ordinates in order to retain Premium benefits, according to a report from TechCrunch.
Original story continues below…
Spotify is clamping down on Premium subscribers who may by sharing the love of their Family plan a little too liberally for the streaming giant’s liking.
Some users report receiving emails from Spotify asking them to confirm their home address in order to continue accessing Premium services. Failing to do so could result in those users losing access to the Family plan in question.
Spotify Family plans have up to five spots available, but the company states families must live together in order to register a user to the plan. The actual small print says the £14.99 plan is for “you and up to five people who reside at your same address.”
Of course, not all families live together, but many Spotify Family spots are shared among the friends of the primary account holder in order to save money on individual subscriptions, which cost £9.99.
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Users receiving the correspondence are naturally incredulous at being pulled up on the rules.
On Twitter @unaligned wrote (via The Verge): “Why do you need my GPS location to continue offering me a “Premium discount”? I pay for the family plan and it should not matter where my family lives. Will you cancel my account if my family gets too far from each other?”
@Spotify Why do you need my GPS location to continue offering me a "Premium discount"? I pay for the family plan and it should not matter where my family lives. Will you cancel my account if my family gets too far from each other? #wtf #fail pic.twitter.com/HauQtHXSUA
— suck (@unaligned) September 18, 2018
Whether Spotify plans to enforce this for all Family plan subscribers remains to be seen. If the company truly defines the ‘family’ as people living under the same roof, what happens to my actual sister on my Spotify plan who lives 4,000 miles away?
In a statement, the company added: “Spotify is currently testing improvements to the user experience of Premium for Family with small user groups in select markets. 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.”
Are you sweating on the status of your family plan given this news? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
