Just a moment...
www.androidauthority.com

A Reddit user Reeceeboii_ highlights, any time you share a song from within Spotify, it generates a unique tracking URL linked to your account. Spotify can join the dots between the sender and receiver whenever anyone clicks on this unique URL. People have allegedly noticed that Spotify has retroactively filled out the history of song shares in the Messages feature, which is possible through these tracking URLs.

  • Lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    34·
    3 days ago

    I don’t understand why Spotify even needs a messaging feature. This seems like one of the most useless additions, as people who share music from the Spotify app are usually sharing it with a friend via an existing messaging service.

    • SSUPII@sopuli.xyz
      6·
      3 days ago

      Surprisingly many people wanted it, as Spotify first launched with such a feature before being removed many years ago. They want to share music even faster with no system app selection popups.

      • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        For example, the share sheet on Android is still terrible. Something that could be fixed by adding a way to customize it quickly (whitelist a few apps and manually pin+sort a few contacts/apps)

    • golli@sopuli.xyz
      2·
      3 days ago

      Generally I think there are two questions: why does Spotify want messages and why would a user want them. The first one seems easy enough to answer: anything that binds a customer more closely to their product and creates switching costs in an otherwise relatively interchangeable product is good from a business perspective.

      I could imagine some other use cases as well: Maybe it could be used to allow artists to engage their fans, inserting the platform deeper inbetween those two. I don’t really know how merch and ticket sales are currently handled exactly, but a messaging system might also be useful to fully keep users within the app while using those features.

  • yuri@pawb.social
    1·
    2 days ago

    knowingly not removing the trackers from links you send to people is like being a trained chef and deliberately giving your loved ones food poisoning.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    6·
    3 days ago

    Why the fuck does Spotify need a messages feature in the first place? Who was asking for this?

    • SSUPII@sopuli.xyz
      2·
      3 days ago

      Surprisingly many people, as Spotify first launched with such a feature before being removed many years ago.

  • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    3 days ago

    Yet another reason why privacy focussed tools should be automatically stripping those out. I use an app on mobile and do it manually on desktop, but it’s still tedious at times