Spotify made the news for their new T&Cs [1] which give
the music-streaming company the right to capture just about any information
about you that they like:
By using or interacting with the Service, you are
consenting to: the collection, use, sharing, and processing of information
about your location, including any related interactions with the Spotify
service and other Spotify users ... the use of cookies and other technologies;
the transfer of your information outside of the country where you live; the
collection, use, sharing, and other processing of your information ... [2].
And:
With your permission, we may collect information
stored on your mobile device, such as contacts, photos, or media files [3].
How about:
Depending
on the type of device that you use to interact with the Service and your
settings, we may also collect information about your location based on, for
example, your phone’s GPS location or other forms of locating mobile devices
(e.g., Bluetooth). We may also collect sensor data (e.g., data about the speed
of your movements, such as whether you are running, walking, or in transit) [2].
Or your FaceBook credentials:
If
you connect to the Service using credentials from a Third Party Application (as
defined in the Terms and Conditions of Use) (e.g., Facebook), you authorise us
to collect your authentication information, such as your username and encrypted
access credentials. We may also collect other information available on or
through your Third Party Application account, including, for example, your
name, profile picture, country, hometown, email address, date of birth, gender,
friends’ names and profile pictures, and networks [2].
Why do they want all this information? To “improve your
experience” whilst improving their targeting advertising:
We may use the information we collect, including your personal
information....to provide, personalise, and improve your experience.....with
the Service and products, services, and advertising (including for third party
products and services) made available on or outside the Service (including on
other sites that you visit), for example by providing customised, personalised,
or localised content, recommendations, features, and advertising on or outside
of the Service [3].
So what can you do about this? Probably not a lot; realistically
all you can do is find another streaming service. But as long-time Spotify users
started to desert the streaming company their CEO issued an apology stating
that “If you don’t want to share this kind of information, you don’t have to”
[4].
Whilst these T&C are quite intrusive, online T&Cs
have been an area of debate for a while. Because of their length and
complicated legal jargon few people ever read them. Research undertaken back in
2011, shows that as few as 7% of Britons read online terms and conditions
before signing up to a service [5]. A Fairer Finance survey in 2014 [6] found that some online T&Cs run to nearly
30,000 words, or the size of a small novel and unsurprisingly 73% of those
surveyed admitted to not reading all the small print let alone understanding it.
Ever read Google’s T&Cs? They can legally scan everything you search for as
the Boston family discovered after innocently googling rucksack and pressure
cooker, which led to a visit from a terrorist task force [7].
Last September F-Secure undertook an experiment to test how
many Londoner’s read the small print for free a Wi-Fi service. Included within
the experiment’s T&C was the so-called Herod’s clause – promising the free
Wi-Fi if “the recipient agreed to assign their first born child to us for the
duration of eternity” [8].
As we are starting to discover in this blog, you don’t get
anything for free. So, next time you sign up for anything online, be it
software or services, even if you don’t have the patience to read 30,000 words,
you should at least have a cursory glance at some of the small print.
[7] http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/
[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/09/29/londoners-accidentally-pay-for-free-wi-fi-with-a-firstborn-because-no-one-reads-anymore/
