Report: Spotify Cracks Down on Account Sharing with GPS Location Check

Music streaming service Spotify is reportedly cracking down on users who share their “family” accounts with friends by requesting GPS location checks from users.

According to the Verge, Spotify is sending out emails to people with access to the family accounts requesting them to confirm their GPS coordinates.

If the address doesn’t match up, or if they refuse, they could lose access to the account.

“Previously the company has offered little to no means of verifying a user’s family status, making it easy to set up shared plans between friends living at entirely separate locations,” explained the Verge.

Though some users have complained that not all families live together, Spotify defines family accounts as accounts for people living in the same household.

@Spotify Why do you need my GPS location to continue offering me a "Premium discount"? I pay for the family plan and it should not matter where my family lives. Will you cancel my account if my family gets too far from each other? #wtf #fail pic.twitter.com/HauQtHXSUA

— suck (@unaligned) September 18, 2018

In a statement, a Spotify spokesman declared, “Spotify is currently testing improvements to the user experience of Premium for Family with small user groups in select markets. 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.”