Spotify is once again starting to crack down on users that are breaking its ‘Spotify Premium for Family’ share plan rules, by asking them to share their location.
The streaming audio company says that only users who reside at the same address are allowed to use a family plan. So if you share a plan with some friends who don’t live with you or you’ve moved out of your parent’s house, your days of a cheaper Spotify subscription may be numbered.
To enforce this rule, Spotify updated its terms of service to say that the app will ask users to update or reverify their home address from “time to time.”
If it finds users are not playing by its rules, it has the power to terminate subscriptions.
When new users sign up for the $14.99 CAD family plan, they’ll be asked to verify their home address by using Google Maps.
According to CNET, the company is also going to be asking users who are already signed up for the service to verify their address as well.
A reader has let us know that users can either share their location data with Spotify, or they can manually type it in. Although the manual option is a much smaller button to click on.
Spotify attempted a similar move last year when it asked users if they lived together, but ultimately that went nowhere. So it will be interesting to see how many people the change affects this time around.
Last year, Billboard reported that almost 30 percent of new signups were for family plans, so this is a pretty big shakeup for the company.
Ideally, it doesn’t end up kicking too many users off of their plan, which may result in people taking the opportunity to test out competing services from Apple, Google, Tidal or Deezer.
Update 12/09/2019 12:52 PM: A reader has let us know that there is still an option to manually enter your address.
