Spotify has begun sending emails to some of its “Premium for Family” subscribers in the US and Germany, asking them to confirm their addresses using GPS. The email also states that “If you don’t confirm, you may lose access to the plan.”
On the special family plan’s page, Spotify does state that the two to five people that benefit from the plan have to be living in the same address. Of course, Not every family member lives in the same house. This is especially true if you’ve got married siblings, or simply those who work out of town.
Plenty of Twitter users are pointing this out to the music streaming service. In response, Spotify says that it’s not trying to redefine what a family is, just who is eligible for the Family Premium plan.
Hey there! To be eligible for our Premium for Family plan, all family members must live at the same location. This can be found in our T&Cs: https://t.co/FboM1TdN4Y. Let us know if you need anything else /WC
— SpotifyCares (@SpotifyCares) September 21, 2018
While there hasn’t been reports of users in any other country getting this email, it may be a matter of time before they do. In statements to both Quartz and Mashable, the services has said “Spotify is currently testing improvements to the user expertience of Premium for Family with small user groups in select markets.”
We can see why the service decided to take this step. it’s not difficult for a bunch of friends to just use a single person’s address so that five people pay RM53.76 each for a whole year instead of the usual RM178.80. And yet, as mentioned above, genuine families who happen to live apart from each other are also impacted by this.
