You can’t get much better than Spotify – some would even argue that it’s the patron saint of music, streaming here to rescue us all. The freemium business model has allowed users from across the world to access its extensive catalogue of songs and podcasts by simply registering their details. But is it as simple as we all think? Or is there a much bigger cost at hand?

Corporations that offer something for free always want something in return. As the most used audio streaming service in existence, boasting 356 million users, they have a staggering amount of data at their disposal.

We’re not saying that the type of data Spotify collects is bad. For years, companies of all sizes have followed our digital footprints! It’s something that we’ve all become used to. Brands like this use data to outline our behaviour patterns and target us with advertisements. However, it’s crucial that you understand the information platforms like this utilise.

But before we get started, it’s important to understand why Spotify collects data. As a business, they want to “provide, personalize, and improve your experience with the Spotify Service.”

Brands as big as Spotify have a duty to be transparent with their customers when it comes to data. To achieve this and align with legislation across the world, Spotify allows its users to download it. If users choose to do this, they will find that it is split up into 12 key areas.

• Playlist
• Streaming History (audio, video, and podcasts)
• Your Library
• Search Queries
• Follow
• Payments
• User Data
• Family Plan
• Inferences
• Voice Input
• Podcast Interactivity
• Spotify for Artists

Spotify uses your behavioural data to make your experience with the app as personalised as possible. On Spotify’s privacy policy, they say they use your data for personalisation, troubleshooting, developing new features, marketing, research and other legal reasons.

Remember when we mentioned that big corporations like Spotify always want something in return? Meet Spotify Advertising. If you’re a non-premium member of the app, you will be far too familiar with this. Using the data collected above, Spotify offers brands the ability to advertise to target users with their marketing campaigns. While this is nothing new in the world of advertising, it’s important to be aware of how they do this.

Similarly, to other platforms like Facebook, advertisers can reach people based on their age, gender, and location. Spotify works with advertising partners to share data and work out your interests and preferences. They can show advertising based on your current mood and activity, just by the genre and type of music you are listening to. For example, the selection of advertising that you see when relaxing to your romance playlist will differ from the playlist that you are working out to.

Like with many applications today, hidden in the settings of the platform you can limit this. To access these, users need to log in through the desktop app and account page. These are some of the settings that users can switch off:

• Scrolling down to advanced settings, you can block “all cookies for this installation of the Spotify desktop app” and choose whether your playlists are made public or private.
• Through your account page, you can change the setting for “Tailored ads” where you can switch off highly targeted advertising.
• Through these settings, you can turn off “Facebook data”. We highly suggest this as this stops any data that has been shared from Facebook.
• You can view and remove what other apps have access to your Spotify account, and we’d recommend going through this, so you have no unwanted access from external sources.
• Take back control of your data and download the Revoke app today and ensure that you know who has your personal data!

Over the last few years, Spotify has truly taken on a life of its own. From Spotify Wrapped outing you for listening to Taylor Swift way more than you’d ever admit to it becoming the feature that brings your entire Tinder profile together.