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Spotify issues apology over 'creepy' new privacy policy

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By Natalie Mortimer, N/A

August 22, 2015 | 2 min read

Spotify has been forced to issue an apology over its newly introduced terms and conditions after users branded them 'creepy'.

The music streaming announced the update on Thursday which required users to agree to allow it to access their photos, contacts phone numbers and location data stored on the user's smartphone as well as view their social media activity.

However some of its 70 million global users, 20 million of whom are subscribers, reacted angrily to the changes, including some high profile users who voiced their discontent on Twitter.

As a result Spotify CEO Daniel Ek took to a blog post to say sorry to disgruntled users and said the company "should have done a better job" at communicating the changes.

"We are in the middle of rolling out new terms and conditions and privacy policy and they’ve caused a lot of confusion about what kind of information we access and what we do with it," he said. "We apologize for that. We should have done a better job in communicating what these policies mean and how any information you choose to share will – and will not – be used.

"We understand people’s concerns about their personal information and are 100 percent committed to protecting our users’ privacy and ensuring that you have control over the information you share."

Ek clarified that if users don't want to share information, they don't have to, and Spotify will always ask for permission to access images and location.

"Again, we have heard your concerns loud and clear. We are also going to update the new Privacy Policy in the coming weeks to better reflect what we have explained above," added Ek.

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