[Privacy] Private Session should stay active

[jakenfinn]

Let's face it. We've all used Spotify to listen to music that we would be embarassed to advertise publically.

Whether it's kittens meowing Christmas songs, that your friends would never let you live down, or a hardcore rap album, that you wouldn't want your 8 year old cousin to go and listen to because his cool aunt or uncle likes it.

When it comes to this social music app, privacy is not a convenient bonus feature, it's a critical necessity.

Currently, the only way to listen to songs privately on Spotify, is to go to the settings and activate a private session. This is not only annoying, since I constantly have to navigate through settings to activate privacy on my phone, it's stressful because you have to worry about whether or not certain people can see what you're listening too. My primary music app should not cause anxiety about what I share publically.

From a 2011 blog post "Spotify is all about sharing and discovering new music. It’s entirely up to you what you decide to share and what you keep private."

With the first part in mind, it makes sense that spotify would default to making all of the music you listen to public to your followers but the second part is not true. Anyone can follow me on Spotify and if I have to continuously activate a private session, there will inevitably be times when I forget. As a paying customer, I should have the ability to hide what I listen to if I please and activate privacy indefinitely.

[user_anonymous]

Hi!

I strongly support the privacy concerns of the fellow community.

@meahtenoha: Can you please explain why there is no permanent privacy setting and why you are not even considering this as a must-have option (at least for premium users)? Enabling "private session" every time you start Spotify is doing the exact same thing; but having to do this every single time makes no sense at all (e.g. if I would have to activate "do-not-track" in my browser every time I start it, I would feel pretty kidded). So we all have to assume you are not making it a permanent setting because you want people to miss activating it and probably not for the most noble reasons.

I like your service and I was hoping that you would let Spotify users decide if they wanted to have private sessions and profiles or not. But forcing them to do so is a pretty strange way as a business model and as being a trustworthy service provider.

I never post any stuff on any boards but this is really a worrisome development. I hope you change your opinion and consider privacy as an important feature in the next version of Spotify.

Best regards,

A.

[Blutch313]

It's bad enough we have to sign up via Facebook, but even worse if we have to go back into settings to turn the Privacy option On.

[scorpiorising]

They are insane.

Do a search on the forum for "private". There are countless threads requesting this. But clearly they have their own priorities: marketing over users. 

I really don't see how it is helping them to alienate the users that care about this but they seem to think it does. 

[user-removed]

2017 and this is still an issue. common guys, make private sessions indefinitely it's a great feature and I doubt that this is so hard that you keep it outside the scope of development.

[d7b]

im sick of this about spoitify. you dont have a monopoly. i have started using google play as a result of this absurd inability to have permanent private sessions. i netiehr want people to see what i listen to or know what they listen to. 

[user-removed]

Perhaps, I can see why you don't want to do this right now. Its probably a genuine worry that people will stick to their own filter bubble and won't explore new exciting content.

However, I use this at work for background white noise - rain / thunders. Its not interesting for my friends to know the current track or even the last track I've listened to - rain sounds on a window pfff. In this way, people would be turned off by my playlist and miss the occasion gems. e.g. the track I listened to last night on my Echo - that was interesting and I bet they hadn't heard it before...

Have you logged how many people immediately log on and switch to private. That would no doubt indicate the people that need this future?

What about turning it on its head - and marking the playlists themselves as playing privately.

[freddelini]

This really is annoying. Can't see what the big problem is, how hard can it be to make the users choose this setting by themselves? Should be a quick fix by a skilled programmer. 

Spotify obviously don't care too much about our privacy. I'm seriously looking at other options. I’m not ashamed of what I’m listening to but I don’t want it to be visible for the whole world anyway. The same goes for what I’m searching for on Google etc. just don’t want the whole world to know. Imagine what people would say if Google by default showed all your friends your searches and you had to turn that feature off every time you restarted your browser…

Many people share this opinion obviously so I can’t see why Spotify ignore our concerns.

[user_anonymous]

As I was talking to more Spotify users, I found out some are not aware of their overall visibility. Why not make it easier for all of us: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Idea-Submissions/All-Platforms-Social-New-profile-feature-privacy/i...

Have a great one!

[musictherapist]

Hi! I am a music therapist, and I would like to use Spotify in my sessions. However, it is very important that when we listen to which songs is kept private for the protection of my clients. I would love an indefinite private session option. 

Just wanted to contribute my perspective.

Thanks!

[JohnLockNKey]

Hello @musictherapist

Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately that is the extent of the customer support you will be receiving from Spotify regarding the crippling restriction that has been forced onto our accounts.  Two paying customers, talking to each other on the comment section of a corporate message board.  Spotify considers this help and support.  Spotify pits us against each other like some sort of musical hipster Hunger Games where we fend for ourselves for others amusement while they are hard at work discovering new ways to ignore us.  They think we work for them and are leaving comments for the good of the product.  My only regret is driving traffic to this site in the process.