Spotify adds 'temporary' private listening mode after Facebook backlash

We're not Zuckerberg's bitch... bitch

By Kelly Fiveash • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 29th September 2011 14:41 GMT

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Spotify tried to placate its unhappy users today after they were herded into Facebook's reservation in a deal between the two companies.

Users of Spotify's service suddenly started seeing their music playlists and history shared with their stalkerbase on Facebook. The onus was placed on individuals to then manually turn the thing off to stop it broadcasting to the world the tunes they were listening to.

"We're rolling out a new client as we speak where you can temporarily hide your guilty pleasures. It works like a browser's private mode," Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said today.

"We call it 'private listening' and you can find it in the Spotify/File menu and toggle it on/off."

He later tweeted: "Temporarily means that it works for this session. If you want to turn it off completely you can do so in preferences."

Earlier this week Ek was forced to clarify the deal his firm had signed with Mark Zuckerberg, a move that underscored why the Facebook supremo possesses the world's largest social network.

"I just want to clarify: some users seem to believe we're forcing existing users to be FB. We only require FB for new users," he tweeted.

But Ek is convinced that Spotify's userbase is "social" and so rounding them all up – eventually – onto Zuckerberg's ranch is a natural progression for the service that wants to star on Web2.0's biggest stage. ®

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