It\u2019s been nearly four years since Spotify announced its family plan, a discounted rate that extends membership benefits to multiple listeners. Pricing initially started at $14.99 for two users but eventually, the company sweetened the deal by allowing up to…<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s been nearly four years since Spotify announced its family plan, a discounted rate that extends membership benefits to multiple listeners. Pricing initially started at $14.99 for two users but eventually, the company sweetened the deal by allowing up to six people under a single account for the same cost.
In the spirit of the plan, members of a family plan should presumably, well, be family members and according to Spotify\u2019s terms and conditions, be living under the same roof.
According to Quartz and a few other publications, Spotify has recently been sending some family member subscribers an e-mail asking them to confirm their home address via GPS. \u201cIf you don\u2019t confirm, you may lose access to the plan,\u201d the message reads.
Spotify is clearly trying to crack down on users that are abusing the spirit of the family plan \u2013 say, friends that may be pitching in to lower the out-of-pocket expense versus having a single premium account. But Spotify\u2019s approach is flawed in that it assumes all families live in the same residence. You can have family members that don\u2019t live in your house \u2013 virtually everyone does. Just because you don\u2019t live at the same address doesn\u2019t mean you aren\u2019t technically family.
Spotify says it will only use GPS data to verify a user\u2019s location but in this day and age of heightened privacy where many are concerned with excessive data collection practices, that isn\u2019t very reassuring.
Like other issues in tech, it’s a problem without a clear solution.<\/p>\n

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