Spotify Bans Ad Blockers In Updated ToS (theverge.com)

In an updated Terms of Service policy sent out on Thursday, Spotify is now explicitly banning ad blockers. "The new rules specifically state that 'circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service' can result in immediate termination or suspension of your account," reports The Verge. From the report: The service already takes significant measures to limit ad blockers. In a DigiDay report from last August, a Spotify spokesperson revealed that the company has "multiple detection measures in place monitoring consumption on the service to detect, investigate and deal with [artificial manipulation of streaming activity]." After it was reported last March that 2 million users (about 2 percent of free Spotify users) were dodging ads with modded apps and accounts, Spotify began cracking down by disabling accounts when the company detected abnormal activity. Users were sent email warnings and given the chance to reactivate their accounts after uninstalling the ad-blocking software. In some rare cases where the problem persisted, Spotify would terminate the account. The new Terms of Service, which go into effect on March 1st, will give Spotify the authority to terminate accounts immediately, without warning.

Comments

Banning ad blockers will never work

[WCMI92]

And is the last gasp of a company that is destined to die. People will not put up with ads in the locations and quantity that publishers and marketers want. Nor should they have to.

Re:Banning ad blockers will never work

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And is the last gasp of a company that is destined to die. People will not put up with ads in the locations and quantity that publishers and marketers want. Nor should they have to.

Bingo.

First they load the site with enough ads to annoy me, then they take steps to make sure they can continue to annoy me. This is not exactly a recipe for success.

Re:Banning ad blockers will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent article mentioned that Spotify and such "saved" the recording labels. Thus reviving and feeding the RIAA monster in the basement. Maybe that time is up. Let nature take its course as people vote with their mouse-clicks / wallets. A few "starving artists" for a few years might also reset the music "industry" to produce something worth listening to.

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want money from your users, put the product behind a paywall. It is that simple.

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[EzInKy]

They don't prefer ads, that's why they block them.

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[FunkSoulBrother]

I don't buy it. I think plenty of people would happy pay for ad-free Spotify with 10 songs to the penny.

They are way greedier than that.

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

but people don't want to pay at all, instead they prefer ads.

To be clear, this is a false dichotomy. People do not want ads. People have never wanted ads. What they want is free and also NO ADVERTS. I know that's not possible, so I pay for Spotify to not get ads.

What I'm concerned about is, I also paid for Adguard, the paid version blocks adverts for all apps on desktop and mobile.

What I don't want is for Spotify to consider me one of the people that are ripping them off because "OMG AD BLOCKER DETECTED"

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[kingbilly]

I agree. With 6 users on our family plan constantly streaming music from devices for 15/month... I think we are getting 100 songs to the penny. And we are happy.

It is not a bad deal at all. Comes to less that 3 a month per person. Not only are there no ads, but the syncing between devices is great. I have a few playlists that I add some tracks to while at home or at work, and those playlists default to downloading on my portable devices, so that I won't have to stream every time I am in the car.

I'm estimating I listen to Spotify about 180 hours a month. Pretty good utility for 3 dollars a month, yet some luddite will call me stupid because Spotify could go away any moment and take the music with them. Implying these luddites don't spend at least 3 dollars a month on something that won't be around a month later (beer, movie tickets, hookers, food, etc).

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[Darinbob]

However ads are dangerous and lead to other issues. Once there are ads the company will now want to have targeted ads to maximize income, or just add more and more ads to maximize income, outsourcing the ads to a third party that they can't control, etc. On computers these ad services are main vector for malware.

An online music service should theoretically be better for the consumer than the radio in the automobile. There we are allowed to changed the station instantly when an ad comes on and we're not being tracked by what stations we prefer.

Re:Banning ad blockers will never work

[Cito]

I use the open source dns server "Pihole" : https://pi-hole.net/
Blocks all ads at the dns level for all devices on my network. For others I use Firefox with ublock and noscript extension to block spammy and malware scripts, and I use the extension Decentraleyes which protects privacy by evading large delivery networks that claim to offer free services, and added protection against trackers and browser fingerprinting.

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

Because those freeloaders, in large amounts, are useful to inflate their numbers and make investors believe they are a successful business.

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[Zocalo]

Active user figures. Look at the way the stock values of social media companies react in relation to changes to userbase - FB and Twitter evaluations have both taken a tumble because they failed to meet expected user growth targets, not just revenue targets; they're ultimately ad-companies so they *need* as many eyeballs as possible. It's also a risk; those users are going to go somewhere, and what happens if that somewhere becomes the Next Big Thing? Pretty sure Spotify doesn't want to become the next MySpace...

Re:Banning ad blockers will never work

[Bigbutt]

I havea pfsense server with an ad blocker. Protects my systems including my mobile devices. Plus noscript for my desktop and laptops.

[John]

Re: Banning ad blockers will never work

[Malc]

I lost my Spotify account a few years ago, which was premium through a special deal through my phone company (Vodafone UK). I received an email that my email address had been changed, but no chance to confirm and accept the change. The hacker changed other details on the account preventing me from confirming any details, and apparently Spotify's security team had no access to historical account information. It was a work phone and I was travelling a lot, so I couldn't get the billing information they asked for quickly, but really, why should I have to work around their shoddy security. I won't pay them a penny. I stopped using the free version to check out music because the ads were using too much CPU and draining my battery, although maybe that shoddy programming has been fixed now? I hope in this case they're only banning ad blockers for the free service, rather than premium (if premium has ads now, then another reason I wouldn't subscribe).

Guess who won't be using Spotify?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Q: Guess who won't be using Spotify?

A: Everybody.

Sorry, but if you prevent me from using an ad blocker you're basically preventing me from visiting your site. That's just how it works, nothing personal.

So long, Spotify, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Re:Guess who won't be using Spotify?

[crgrace]

If you're using their free service but blocking ads you are actually costing them money because they have to pay for the songs they stream.

So it is probably best you not use the service. Spotify isn't a charity.

Paying for a subscription is much better option

[TuballoyThunder]

Provided that the pay service performs demonstrably better. I don't have anything against advertising, but I think it is irresponsible that businesses outsource advertising. Not only have they handed over their revenue generation to someone else, but they have no control over the buffoonery in the ads.

Re:Paying for a subscription is much better option

[Registered Coward v2]

I agree with you, but unfortunately 99% of people choose ad supported service and then try to block ads instead of paying.

Which shows you how much they actually value the service if they aren't willing to pay to get an ad free stream.

To the www soon?

[AHuxley]

A web site detects an ad blocker.
Content is not shown.
Return to the site with a new ip and no blocker, the site loads.

Customer respect

[presearch]

A long time ago, a founder of a very large software company (still in business BTW but not with him) told me
he was against copy protection (and banned the use of it in the company) because you owe everything to your
customers that pay and should disregard people that don't pay you anything.

I thought that was an enlightened approach, and still do.
That company is now neck deep in the software-as-a-rental model and the long paying customers feel screwed.

I think they auto find another cad package...

Re:Users ban Spotify

[Luthair]

Seems like a net benefit for Spotify, currently you're costing them money on bandwidth and streaming fees, if you stop using their site you'll cost them nothing.

Wonder how it will deal with network level blocks

[linuxtelephony]

I'm on a network where the admins have blocked many/most ad servers for security reasons (ad companies have historically been tricked into serving malware with the ads).

I wonder how Spotify will deal with that. This is not a block on the app, or the device, or even the computer, but rather at the network level. If their ads are served by the same servers as their content then it should be fine, but if their ads are served by separate servers that are already on a blocked list then it could be an issue. And not one the user can control unless they switch to a different network, if available, or disable wifi and use mobile data. If they shut down my account for this then so be it, because I won't use my mobile data just for them when wifi is available.

Barney the Purple Dino Sings....

[pslytely psycho]

You block me,
I ban you,
we just roll around in poo,
singing "Pay for it or don't block ads,
as we are a bunch of cads..."

It's our right,
even if it's wrong,
So get it on and bang a gong,
If you wanna listen to your favorite song,
You are forced to suck upon the corporate dong,

Not a Spotify customer and never will be, then

[Rick Schumann]

I don't even like 'streaming' services, especially for things like music, although so many of you here on Slashdot would argue that I should be -- but Spotify disqualifies itself entirely with this move. I'm not going to disable adblockers and NoScript and other things I have loaded just to access anyones' service, and I suspect I'm not alone in that. Enjoy going out of business, Spotify. And nothing of value was lost.

Re: Not a Spotify customer and never will be, then

[91degrees]

You're not a customer. They make no money from you, and wouldn;t even if you used the service. Why do you think they care? "Oh no! people we're making no money from are no longer costing us money! what will we do!?"

I'm really not seeing a problem here from Spotify's point of view.

Then I don't need Spotify.

[Chas]

Sorry, but ads are, unfortunately, a transmission vector for malware and compromise code.

I do not choose to open my systems to that.

And, even if I did, it's MY desktop real-estate, not the ad purveyor's.

If they wish to lock me out of their service? C'est la vie.

Re:Users ban Spotify

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were to (gasp!) RTFA, you'd see that they claim that only 2% of the free-service users are smart enough to employ ad blockers. So to your corrected question, "And when 2% of their users leave", I don't think they'll be too crushed at the loss.

So I must allow ads to go... where exactly?

[TentativeFate]

Ok, so I'm not allowed to set my browser to not download ads.
I guess I'm also not allowed to prevent ads from being displayed on screen?
Am I allowed not to look? Or must it also reach my eyes?
Am I allowed not to pay attention? Or must I let it into my brain? My mind? My soul? My very existence?
Why not just force me to buy the damn thing you're promoting and get this over with?