The Christian Science Monitor reports on Spotify’s plan to incorporate user data in a new personalized marketing initiative. The streaming music service will use the data collected on its 70 million free subscribers to generate targeted, automated advertising. The data will integrate users’ age, gender, location, music preferences and behavioral habits, allowing advertisers to send ads to specific demographics. The new process will allow advertisers to buy ads in real time, a major step in digital advertising, the report states. However, Spotify’s new method will be examined by concerned privacy advocates. “If, as advertisers claim, consumers are truly interested in receiving targeted ads, then they can affirmatively choose to do so, but the default is set the other way around because advertisers know that many people will not want to agree to that,” said Consumer Federation of America Director of Consumer Protection and Privacy Susan Grant.
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