Spotify pulls plug on family plan residence test
Spotify on Friday said it ended a test in which it contacted some subscribers of its Premium for Family plan, asking them to confirm the family members all reside at a single address via GPS, according to multiple media reports and social media posts.
Some family plan users recently received the emails from Spotify asking them to confirm their home address using GPS, according to posts on Twitter and reports in Quartz and Spiegel Online.
“If you don’t confirm, you may lose access to the plan,” the emails said. But the “short test” ended Friday, the company told USA TODAY in a statement.
The streaming service began offering the family plan four years ago, letting subscribers add up to five more users who reside at the same address for $14.99 a month. Those users get the service as do individual subscribers to the $9.99 monthly Premium plan, which has no advertisements and lets you skip tracks and download music for offline listening – significant upgrades over Spotify’s free service.
Many users who discussed the situation on Twitter brought up the fact that not all families live in the same home, with many having some members who live overseas.
Such a location-based requirement, should it be enforced, could be seen to run counter to a recent agreement with Ancestry.com to encourage users to listen to music based on their DNA – an experiment that could collate music from across the world.
Some said the decision could make them consider Apple Music, which has a similar family plan at the same price. “Pretty aggressive,” is how Philip Battin, an executive at Google, characterized Spotify’s move on Twitter in his post showing the notice from Spotify.
When contacted earlier Friday about the reports, Spotify offered this statement: “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.”