
Spotify – Dark Patterns and Privacy - hhariri
http://hadihariri.com/2017/03/26/spotify-dark-pattern/
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Crosseye_Jack
Im sure they do give you the options to not share anything, they are just
below the setting in question
[http://i.imgur.com/fPg93BJ.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/fPg93BJ.jpg)

They way I interpreted "private session" is that you can stop posting what you
are playing to Facebook, Last.Fm and Spotify's own profile for a short period
but want to resume posting later.

If you want to stop posting all together you can turn off the places you post
to one by one.

Not sure if posting to your Spotify profile is opt-in or out, if it's opt-out
I set it a while ago, but if you found the private session setting the opt-out
setting is right below.

~~~
hhariri
I believe this is independent from Social Media connections.

~~~
Crosseye_Jack
It turns off your Sharing for what your playing for your session, but if you
want to turn of the Sharing completely you have the option to do so.

For example I have a client who streams video games. He has a an on screen
overlay that will show what track he is listening to so if his viewers what to
know what he is listening to t will show and also be announced in chat. This
is mainly done though the use of scrobbling the tracks to last.fm, now when
they are not streaming they may not want the world to know what they are
listening to this gives them the option to stop posting to last.fm and the
Spotify profile until they have been inactive for 6 hours so they don't need
to flip the switch back on.

You are not forced to link Facebook or Last.FM, you can unlink them ir prevent
Spotify from posting to them.

The only one you are "forced into" is creating a Spotify profile. As you have
said (or was it in the link to the request) anyone follow that profile but you
can also stop posting what your playing there completely.

Think of this option of more of a standby then a off button. But the off
buttons are still there.

If I'm misunderstanding your issue please explain. It reads from your post and
the links in it that you take issue that Spotify can make your playing history
public and you believe you can only turn that off on a per-session basis
(private session gives a footer in the iOS app to so it's enabled), but going
though my settings i can turn those features off completely.

Are you trying to stop Spotify recording your history completely from devices
signed into the account. I.e. Make it so your computer can not see what tracks
you are playing on your phone? Because I believe that is possible too.

I'm not sure how I did it, but I use the same account on my computer and phone
(didn't need to sign into Spotify to play via my PS4 but I use the "devices"
feature in the iOS app to send what I want to play to the console) and there
have been times I've wanted to check my phones history on my computer (heard a
track I like while out and about and wanted to put it into a playlist when I
got home) but the history was only showing my playback for what I had played
on the computer and not the phone. So this is speculation but maybe locking
down the privacy settings makes the history only store on the device (ofcause
I'm sure Spotify do record it because how else could they do their customised
playlists, they also need to atleast keep a note of track plays to pay out
royalties but from a privacy point of view Spotify don't have to pair that
with a user account).

But the wording on the private session mode option you show says to enable it
if you don't want to share your what you are listening too and it's under the
social grouping of settings (that wording is missing from the iOS app) so my
interpretation of that setting is that it's to do with the social features.

I'm just trying to better understand your complaint as my understanding is
that you just need to deselect the other option(s) instead of enabling this
one every session.

