Some Facebook integration questions

[SteveBrammer]

It's now been 6 months since you made Facebook a requirement for all new Spotify users. I have a few questions about the Facebook integration that I don't think have previously been answered.

Rorey stated in this earlier post that logins to Spotify through Facebook will still work even when Facebook is blocked at your location. I assume this means that the Spotify client sends the credentials first to Spotify's servers and then they talk to Facebook to authenticate the login, meaning the Spotify client never talks directly to Facebook.

So my first question is...

What would happen if Facebook was down or became inaccessible from Spotify's servers (not likely I know, but not beyond the realms of possibility)? Would users depending on Facebook for authentication not be able to access Spotify until Facebook was accessible again?

My second question is...

If a user is, for some reason, banned by Facebook (as happened recently to one of your own employees), will they or won't they be able to access Spotify during the period they are banned by Facebook?

[Stupify]

I know the answer to the second question: If you are banned from Facebook, you are unable to access any apps, including Spotify.

You are still able to log in with Facebook to websites offering it as an option, but the Spotify Facebook application ceases to function while you are banned, so you can't use Spotify while you are banned from Facebook.

[SteveBrammer]

Lucky for Andres he's a Spotify employee otherwise he'd be screwed, much like ordinary Spotify customers who happen to get banned by Facebook.

[SteveBrammer]

Bump!

It would be nice to get some official response to these questions from Spotify.

[SteveBrammer]

Sadly, it would appear that Spotify are trying to avoid answering these questions. They do seem to be very sensitive regarding any criticism pointing out the downsides of their mandatory Facebook integration.

[Jude · Accepted solution]

1) What would happen if Facebook was down or became inaccessible from Spotify's servers

Yes. There is an little extra dependency there. It has to be acknowledged. FB has a pretty good uptime record though.

2) If a user is, for some reason, banned by Facebook (as happened recently to one of your own employees), will they or won't they be able to access Spotify

Although I don't like to contradict Stupify, it turns out that you can access Spotify, even if you have a FB ban. This is because you can still log in to your FB account. As you pointed out, Andres was banned recently (Totally innocent and work-related behaviour, honest. It just happened to trigger an auto-ban). Andres was still able to access his Spotify account using his FB details.

[SteveBrammer]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Stupify]

That's news to me. Facebook does block access to some apps if your account is banned, I guess Spotify's an exception here.

[SteveBrammer]

Stupify,

I'm prepared to believe Spotify on this one. They would be crazy to tell us something that isn't true, here in a public forum. It would inevitably come back to haunt them later if found not to be correct.

[Stupify]

I know, Spotify's pretty much married to Facebook at this point so it's not that weird they have special privileges inside Facebook. Too bad those privileges come at a cost of requiring Facebook for every new user.

[Stupify]

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but conflicting information has been found.

According to a very rude tweet  it looks like you are actually unable to use Spotify if you are banned from Facebook. That rude tweet probably wouldn't have been made if the person was actually able to log in.

[Jude]

The gentleman doesn't actually specificy whether he has a Spotify account already. It may be that he doesn't yet have one.I'm not inclined to ask him.

[SteveBrammer]

@Jude - Irregardless of the rude gentleman, can you just give us a straight forward answer?

If you become banned from Facebook and you joined Spotify after 22nd September 2011, are you still able to log in and use Spotify? Yes or no?

It does seem that you are being rather evasive and skirting around the issue here, which only arouses suspicions even more that this is in fact a problem.

[licenced]

Jude answered already:

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@Jude wrote:

2) If a user is, for some reason, banned by Facebook (as happened recently to one of your own employees), will they or won't they be able to access Spotify

Although I don't like to contradict Stupify, it turns out that you can access Spotify, even if you have a FB ban. This is because you can still log in to your FB account. As you pointed out, Andres was banned recently (Totally innocent and work-related behaviour, honest. It just happened to trigger an auto-ban). Andres was still able to access his Spotify account using his FB details.

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[Jude]

I don't I'm being evasive, Steve. The answer appears to be that it is still possible to log in, even if you are banned from Facebook. This is because you can still actually log into your FB account. Short of engaging in the kind of behaviour that might cause FB to ban me, I can't confirm that. However, as I referred to earlier in the thread, Spotify Andres got a short ban a while ago. He could still log in to Spotify using his FB details.

[Stupify]

Did Andres have a Spotify account made before mandatory Facebook?

It may also be possible that permanent Facebook bans (the linked person is quite rude and may have got one) are different from temporary bans.

Actually, yet another question. Do you have any plans on ever letting people register without going through Facebook again? Employees keep saying "we really listen to you", but after 7 months of complaints nothing has been done. There are people without Facebook that can't sign up.

[Hypermirage]

Isn't it cool to be one of Lord Zuckerberg's subjects? Gosh, I wonder what we'll be allowed to pay for in another year! It's really such a good idea to force their users to have FB accounts. There are so many justifiably awesome reasons to do it. But looking at the Spotify FAQ, it doesn't really get into that. Neither does the homepage. In fact, now that I look around, they seem to be pretending that the FB link is an OPTION, not mandatory. But why would they pretend it was optional when everyone knows it's better to be forced into this partnership? You'd think Spotify would be really proud of their FB mandate. I wonder why they aren't? Well Spotify? Don't you care about my feedback?

[Slacker]

I'm fed up with the Facebook block. I've moved on to  slacker.com. Gave up my premim account and all that. Just doesn't make sense.