Spotify Is Now Selling Your Information To Advertisers (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Engadget: Spotify is now opening its data to targeted advertising. "Everything from your age and gender, to the music genres you like to listen to will be available to various third-party companies," reports Engadget. "Spotify is calling it programmatic ad buying (Warning: source may be paywalled) and has already enabled it." The nearly 70 million people that currently use Spotify's free, ad-supported streaming service across 59 countries will be affected. The ads will be audio-based and stretch between 15-30 seconds in length. The advertisers who buy ad spots will be able to look for specific users by viewing their song picks to find the best matches for the products they're selling. Two weeks ago, China has released its first ever set of digital ad regulations that seems to all but ban ad blocking.

Comments

Re:Always been doing it

[vux984]

How else would all of these services be "free"?

Well, one model would be to give people a sample limited service to hopefully upsell them into a paid spotify premium; that would be the classic 'how else'.

Note that spotify says this only applies to its non-paying customers.

But yeah, if you aren't paying for the service, this is pretty much what you should expect.

Usernames too

[Anonymous Coward]

They also sell your username if someone higher on the social ladder wants the one you're using.

Hey, maybe that's how they can finally monetize Slashdot. I'll put up $5 for "CmdrTaco"

Re:Always been doing it

[Mr. Slippery]

So since you are hearing ads (and I'm assuming you a relatively young anonymous coward) you would rather hear irrelevant ads shilling restless leg syndrome aids VS cheap flights to cancun?

Can't speak for the AC, but if I can't avoid corporate mind control (a.k.a. advertising) entirely I'd like it to be as mistargeted as possible. Facebook sometimes seems to think I'm in Sri Lanka or Laos and sends me ads I can't read, that's perfect.