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A reply from Darren, a Spotify employee: "Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unle

A reply from Darren, a Spotify employee: "Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. " This is asinine.

astrodust 15y ago
If you object to Facebook on other grounds, you're basically screwed. Some people refuse to eat shellfish or ham. Why is not using Facebook any different?
- skymt 15y ago
  I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. Correctly or not, preferences are given more credence by our society if they're based on religion.
  - jim_h 15y ago
    It could also be food allergies.
  - Triumvark 15y ago
    > I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. I suppose the Amish probably aren't interested in Spotify...
    - vacri 15y ago
      I imagine you're right, that the Amish aren't particularly interested in online music services, but I remember reading an article that pointed out that the Amish aren't really anti-technology per se, they're anti-labour-saving devices. The ethos is apparently to work hard and with your hands, and they have no qualms in letting people with physical issues use tech; the example given in the article was a farmer who had arthritis and whose sons had moved out, who was permitted to use a tractor in order to keep his farm going.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    It's not just religion. See this article for some explanation of why an atheistic utility maximizer might accept religious (and other non-religious) excuses: http://lesswrong.com/lw/24o/eight_short_studies_on_excuses/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/24o/eight_short_studies_on_excuses/
  - saraid216 15y ago
    I'm starting Anti-Facebookism. Any takers?
  - astrodust 15y ago
    There are some that take a religious sort of attitude towards not handing out personal information and/or interacting with entities that will, of which Facebook is surely a terrible offender. Some people won't even use Google for this reason.
- RexRollman 15y ago
  Mainly, because there is no technical reason for Spotify to do this. I suspect the real reason for situation is some kind of backroom deal that will only serve to fuck over users.
  - bonzoesc 15y ago
    The technical reason is this way they can outsource all the difficult and annoying account management stuff. No resetting passwords, no CAPTCHAs, they can let Facebook handle that. If somebody steals their database, all they get are OAuth keys that can be revoked, either by the user they're scoped to or by Spotify en masse[1]. 1: If there's a Facebook engineer on the App stuff reading this, will this dialog invalidate all OAuth keys? Reset Secret Key? Are you sure you want to reset the secret key for Pico Oauth2 Test? If you proceed, access to the API with your old secret will be denied. This operation cannot be undone.
    - zzleeper 15y ago
      Do you REALLY believe that? Spotify is not a little tiny startup starting from zero. They already have a pwd mgmt system, captchas and so on. Given that they are not that small either, alienating just 0.5% of their user base may be enough to offset any "outsourcing gains"
      - stickfigure 15y ago
        I can't speak for the guy above, but I certainly recognize some valid technical reasons. If Spotify wanted to offer a Pandora-like limitation whereby each free account only gets X hours of music, they have a strong reason to inhibit users from creating multiple accounts. Perhaps it's just too easy with local logins; yes, people can create multiple Facebook accounts, but maybe this adds enough friction to the process to reduce the violation rate to acceptable levels. The "14-days abroad" limitation for free users might be the issue. Perhaps people were just creating 2nd and 3rd and 4th etc accounts. Aside from this, there are still valid technical reasons to abandon local login. Just because you have a capcha, forgotpw, etc system written doesn't mean there aren't benefits from getting rid of it - including the portion of the support staff responsible for "I can't log in" problems. And if they used multiple OpenID providers? Expect to hire more. I'm not saying that this is the reason Spotify is doing what they did - I don't work for them. But it's certainly plausible that going FB-only is being done for technical reasons, and I expect they have a pretty good idea of what they're gaining and losing by making this decision.
Luyt 15y ago
It is indeed. It makes one wonder whether the cookies that Facebook installs in your browser, will allow them to track you anyway, even when you completely 'shut' your FB account tight. My PC's are facebook-cookie-free.
- uptown 15y ago
  IP addresses are a somewhat-reliable way for them to do this depending on the user, the device they connect through, and the timing of connectivity to services which could be correlated using this IP address.
majika 15y ago
I find it interesting that he prefixed the information with "unfortunately." Evidently, he doesn't think it's a good idea either.
sthlm 15y ago
This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. Actually it does, based on the FB Terms [1]: 4.1.: You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook [...] 4.2: You will not create more than one personal profile. [1] https://www.facebook.com/terms.php https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  Well, it's true that option's only permitted by the EULA for us non-Facebook users. But aren't those the only people it has to work for? If you currently use Facebook then presumably you've already decided to not be particularly worried about your privacy, and Spotify seems like an odd place to try to draw a line in the sand.
  - sthlm 15y ago
    That's not necessarily true, you can abide the terms and create a real account with real information, but close your wall, etc, making it essentially a profile with your real name and profile picture. That wasn't my point though. I get annoyed when I see these non-solutions being offered. Of course, barely anyone will mind the linking of their FB account. Those people who don't, have no obvious way out (sign up for a second email address to sign up for a second facebook account to sign up for spotify). To suggest otherwise is a bit insulting. The answer should have been: "We're sorry, this is just how it will be from now on."
    - bunderbunder 15y ago
      Gotcha gotcha. I couldn't agree more.
- timdorr 15y ago
  And what are they going to do? Shut down your fake account? As far as I can tell, they are only doing checks against obvious spammers. It's not like they have a team of people doing detailed background checks on each and every signup that comes through. That would be impossible to do. As long as you create a reasonable persona, they are not going to hunt you down. There will be no serious repercussions.
veyron 15y ago
Is there a bug-me-not for facebook? Like a pool of anonymous accounts that people can use?
- stfu 15y ago
  Would be really a good thing. But I guess they ban accounts after a few log ins from different IP addresses so these don't mess up their profiling data.
  - keane 15y ago
    Maybe a bug-me-not that uses a VPN for a consistent IP and sends a spoofed user-agent for added uniformity would be an improvement. Additionally, each time the account is deactivated, the service time-bans the users who most recently were assigned the deactivated account (suspected to be Facebook's security team) for 6 hours, sends all other users the credentials to a new auto-created account, and looks for repeat presence of IPs in the time-banned group to be perma-banned.
    - stfu 15y ago
      SSH proxy might be better, but its still going to be your whole browser connections that are going through the tunnel. Maybe it would be an alternative to come up with a way of spliting an internet connection among different tunnels, e.g. a way of managing different proxies for different ip destinations. Could be actually be an interesting project to develop there more user friendly/mainstream compatible privacy tools. Wish I had the skills to do that :)
gigawatt 15y ago
He says "will need a Facebook account to access Spotify…" That sounds even 10x worse than requiring it to sign up. I just checked and I can still access my account without a Facebook account linked to it, but I wonder if they're going to pull that out as well.
- RexRollman 15y ago
  When I was a paying member of Flickr, Yahoo forced me to open a Yahoo account. It was annoying but at least Yahoo actually owned Flickr.
gerggerg 15y ago
And It's actually impossible to 'add nothing' to a facebook account. It adds things for you. You would have to have a browser dedicated to nothing but logging into facebook and using spotify to really 'add nothing' to the facebook page. And even then youre adding spotify data to it.
drzaiusapelord 15y ago
No, whats asinine is how Spotify employees do not know that FB accounts must contain your real name and real information and that users are not allowed more than one account. Its against the TOS to just create a fake account solely for Spotify. Pardon me if I don't want guys like you to have all my FB information.
funkdobiest 15y ago
Sounds just like Turntable.fm. I would love to signup and use there service but I don't use Facebook.

astrodust 15y ago

If you object to Facebook on other grounds, you're basically screwed. Some people refuse to eat shellfish or ham. Why is not using Facebook any different?

skymt 15y ago
I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. Correctly or not, preferences are given more credence by our society if they're based on religion.
- jim_h 15y ago
  It could also be food allergies.
- Triumvark 15y ago
  > I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. I suppose the Amish probably aren't interested in Spotify...
  - vacri 15y ago
    I imagine you're right, that the Amish aren't particularly interested in online music services, but I remember reading an article that pointed out that the Amish aren't really anti-technology per se, they're anti-labour-saving devices. The ethos is apparently to work hard and with your hands, and they have no qualms in letting people with physical issues use tech; the example given in the article was a farmer who had arthritis and whose sons had moved out, who was permitted to use a tractor in order to keep his farm going.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  It's not just religion. See this article for some explanation of why an atheistic utility maximizer might accept religious (and other non-religious) excuses: http://lesswrong.com/lw/24o/eight_short_studies_on_excuses/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/24o/eight_short_studies_on_excuses/
- saraid216 15y ago
  I'm starting Anti-Facebookism. Any takers?
- astrodust 15y ago
  There are some that take a religious sort of attitude towards not handing out personal information and/or interacting with entities that will, of which Facebook is surely a terrible offender. Some people won't even use Google for this reason.
RexRollman 15y ago
Mainly, because there is no technical reason for Spotify to do this. I suspect the real reason for situation is some kind of backroom deal that will only serve to fuck over users.
- bonzoesc 15y ago
  The technical reason is this way they can outsource all the difficult and annoying account management stuff. No resetting passwords, no CAPTCHAs, they can let Facebook handle that. If somebody steals their database, all they get are OAuth keys that can be revoked, either by the user they're scoped to or by Spotify en masse[1]. 1: If there's a Facebook engineer on the App stuff reading this, will this dialog invalidate all OAuth keys? Reset Secret Key? Are you sure you want to reset the secret key for Pico Oauth2 Test? If you proceed, access to the API with your old secret will be denied. This operation cannot be undone.
  - zzleeper 15y ago
    Do you REALLY believe that? Spotify is not a little tiny startup starting from zero. They already have a pwd mgmt system, captchas and so on. Given that they are not that small either, alienating just 0.5% of their user base may be enough to offset any "outsourcing gains"
    - stickfigure 15y ago
      I can't speak for the guy above, but I certainly recognize some valid technical reasons. If Spotify wanted to offer a Pandora-like limitation whereby each free account only gets X hours of music, they have a strong reason to inhibit users from creating multiple accounts. Perhaps it's just too easy with local logins; yes, people can create multiple Facebook accounts, but maybe this adds enough friction to the process to reduce the violation rate to acceptable levels. The "14-days abroad" limitation for free users might be the issue. Perhaps people were just creating 2nd and 3rd and 4th etc accounts. Aside from this, there are still valid technical reasons to abandon local login. Just because you have a capcha, forgotpw, etc system written doesn't mean there aren't benefits from getting rid of it - including the portion of the support staff responsible for "I can't log in" problems. And if they used multiple OpenID providers? Expect to hire more. I'm not saying that this is the reason Spotify is doing what they did - I don't work for them. But it's certainly plausible that going FB-only is being done for technical reasons, and I expect they have a pretty good idea of what they're gaining and losing by making this decision.

Luyt 15y ago

It is indeed. It makes one wonder whether the cookies that Facebook installs in your browser, will allow them to track you anyway, even when you completely 'shut' your FB account tight. My PC's are facebook-cookie-free.

uptown 15y ago
IP addresses are a somewhat-reliable way for them to do this depending on the user, the device they connect through, and the timing of connectivity to services which could be correlated using this IP address.

majika 15y ago

I find it interesting that he prefixed the information with "unfortunately." Evidently, he doesn't think it's a good idea either.

sthlm 15y ago

This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. Actually it does, based on the FB Terms [1]: 4.1.: You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook [...] 4.2: You will not create more than one personal profile. [1] https://www.facebook.com/terms.php https://www.facebook.com/terms.php

bunderbunder 15y ago
Well, it's true that option's only permitted by the EULA for us non-Facebook users. But aren't those the only people it has to work for? If you currently use Facebook then presumably you've already decided to not be particularly worried about your privacy, and Spotify seems like an odd place to try to draw a line in the sand.
- sthlm 15y ago
  That's not necessarily true, you can abide the terms and create a real account with real information, but close your wall, etc, making it essentially a profile with your real name and profile picture. That wasn't my point though. I get annoyed when I see these non-solutions being offered. Of course, barely anyone will mind the linking of their FB account. Those people who don't, have no obvious way out (sign up for a second email address to sign up for a second facebook account to sign up for spotify). To suggest otherwise is a bit insulting. The answer should have been: "We're sorry, this is just how it will be from now on."
  - bunderbunder 15y ago
    Gotcha gotcha. I couldn't agree more.
timdorr 15y ago
And what are they going to do? Shut down your fake account? As far as I can tell, they are only doing checks against obvious spammers. It's not like they have a team of people doing detailed background checks on each and every signup that comes through. That would be impossible to do. As long as you create a reasonable persona, they are not going to hunt you down. There will be no serious repercussions.

veyron 15y ago

Is there a bug-me-not for facebook? Like a pool of anonymous accounts that people can use?

stfu 15y ago
Would be really a good thing. But I guess they ban accounts after a few log ins from different IP addresses so these don't mess up their profiling data.
- keane 15y ago
  Maybe a bug-me-not that uses a VPN for a consistent IP and sends a spoofed user-agent for added uniformity would be an improvement. Additionally, each time the account is deactivated, the service time-bans the users who most recently were assigned the deactivated account (suspected to be Facebook's security team) for 6 hours, sends all other users the credentials to a new auto-created account, and looks for repeat presence of IPs in the time-banned group to be perma-banned.
  - stfu 15y ago
    SSH proxy might be better, but its still going to be your whole browser connections that are going through the tunnel. Maybe it would be an alternative to come up with a way of spliting an internet connection among different tunnels, e.g. a way of managing different proxies for different ip destinations. Could be actually be an interesting project to develop there more user friendly/mainstream compatible privacy tools. Wish I had the skills to do that :)

gigawatt 15y ago

He says "will need a Facebook account to access Spotify…" That sounds even 10x worse than requiring it to sign up. I just checked and I can still access my account without a Facebook account linked to it, but I wonder if they're going to pull that out as well.

RexRollman 15y ago
When I was a paying member of Flickr, Yahoo forced me to open a Yahoo account. It was annoying but at least Yahoo actually owned Flickr.

gerggerg 15y ago

And It's actually impossible to 'add nothing' to a facebook account. It adds things for you. You would have to have a browser dedicated to nothing but logging into facebook and using spotify to really 'add nothing' to the facebook page. And even then youre adding spotify data to it.

drzaiusapelord 15y ago

No, whats asinine is how Spotify employees do not know that FB accounts must contain your real name and real information and that users are not allowed more than one account. Its against the TOS to just create a fake account solely for Spotify. Pardon me if I don't want guys like you to have all my FB information.

funkdobiest 15y ago

Sounds just like Turntable.fm. I would love to signup and use there service but I don't use Facebook.