Spotify cracks down on family plan sharing

Spotify's Premium for Family plan is a good deal: $15 a month snags you up to six ad-free accounts on the service, which would normally cost $10 each. It's not a surprise, then, that people have been sharing the accounts among friends to save a few bucks. Now Spotify appears to be cracking down on the practice.

According to the terms of the Premium for Family account, people sharing a family account are required to reside at the same address. The German news site Spiegel Online reports that Spotify has begun sending emails to some Premium for Family subscribers asking for confirmation of their home address. If they do not comply, the email says they could lose access to their plan.

While the Premium for Family plan is certainly a way for friends to save some money by going in on a plan together, it's also true that many families do not live in the same household. What's more, some people are concerned about Spotify's request for this kind of personal data and see it as an intrusion of privacy.

This moves comes on the heels of Spotify's crackdown on the usage of hacked apps to bypass ads for free users. Clearly the company is concerned about the bottom line, especially with a recent Billboard report that states that, though Spotify's user base is steadily growing, its revenue is shrinking. The report points specifically to family plans as the reason.

Via: The Verge

Source: Spiegel Online



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