Private Session control will be tedious

[Syd]

In general, I love the new Android app, but I wanted to confirm something.  Let me know if I've misunderstood this.  From Settings...

Private Session  OFF/ON

Don't share to others what you're listening to. 

Private session lasts until you've been inactive for 6h.

...

Why shouldn't we be able to remain in private mode indefinitely?  I can't think of a single reason that I would want to share the music that my three year-old daughter likes to listen to with my friends/colleagues.  Even if it weren't for Dora the Explorer, and what that says about me, if someone has eclectic tastes, the music they listen to can offer more of a window into their moods than many people would feel comfortable with.  I know social networks are where privacy expectations go to die, but I didn't become a paying customer of Spotify for the social network.  In fact, one of the reasons I abandoned Rdio is that they seemed more interested in me as a provider of social data than as a provider of money.  Is it no different here?  Just let me know.

I would pay a dollar extra each month in order to not have to keep going into the settings dialogue each time I launched the app.  If that sounds ridiculous, I agree.

[lapi]

I hate the fact that all i listen to is published on my facebook profile. I consider moving to wimp just to get my privacy.

[neo-x]

I think you can change the settings that it wouldn't post stuff to the facebook profile. Check settings....

[bostonboston]

I generally love Spotify, but having to reset my Private Session every time I reboot or have been idle for a while is awful. There are people I really do not want to see what or when I'm listening to and as a paying member, I feel I should have more control over my privacy settings, including PERMANENT PRIVATE SESSIONS. This is a huge issue. For example, I do not want my boss to know I'm listening to music at 2 a.m. I don't want my soon to be ex to know I'm listening to Patsy Cline. I don't want that cute boy I'm interested in to know I'm listening to a song he just posted. Or maybe I do, but I don't want EVERYONE to know I have a crush on him. Let me open my feed to certain people or none.

Ever since the partnership with Facebook started there have been questionable privacy moves. Many people I know ignore Spotify now within Facebook. Please reconsider these decisions and give control back to the user.

I'm a big evangelist for Spotify, but this issue is the #1 problem for me and my friends.

[meat_and_mead]

I completely agree with everyone here.  I considering making a fake Facebook account just so I can do this.  I really don't care what my 'friends' (many of these people are high school classmates from 5 years ago) are listening to, and I don't want everything I'm listening to published.

[bull_tpk]

Totally agree, this is so annoying. Maybe I should tell all my facebook friends how annoying this is

[Richard]

I've been keeping an eye on this thread and I wonder if you could clarify the issue here for us.

Beneath the Private Session option is the Post to Facebook toggle. Setting this to off will permanently turn off sharing what you're listening to on Facebook. So it's the same as using the Private Session - but all the time.

Remember, the Private Session was designed for short-term use - like when you want to a hide a 'guilty pleasure' and so on. The other option is a master switch for having sharing always on or off.

Or am I simply missing something here?

[Stupify]

You are missing the part where, even with Post to Facebook off, it will still share the songs on the desktop app's sidebar. Spotify Social is what you call it.

[bull_tpk]

It is a very annoying setting. Hard to know what the purpose is. Cant be for marketing as they are preaching to the converetd there in that side bar. Cant be to attract new members, so got me stuffed what it is for.

[Richard]

Oh I see, the Spotify Social side of things yes. This can't be turned off permanently in the mobile app. Does unchecking this in the desktop app not carry across all platforms then? I was under the impression it did.

And bull_tpk the sharing features are there to help you and others discover new music. I've discovered loads of new music by dipping into what my friends are currently listening to. We're also revamping the sidebar in the next update to make it more relevant to what you want to see, rather than being totally overwhelming.  

[bull_tpk]

Agree on learning about new music, that is a good point, but I still think on a matter of principal it should be my choice on a paid app that I can remain private permanently if I choose to

[Richard]

I've tested this myself a little in the office, and it seems that turning of sharing to Spotify Social in the desktop app will carry across to all platforms. So, I unchecked the box, played some music on my Android, and it didn't show up in my friends' feeds.

I even left Facebook posting on and this still worked. So I'm confident that the desktop app gives you universal control.

Anyone else care to give this a go?

[diegorr]

I am having the same concern.

I have perfectly found the way out in the windows app for keeping private my activity and playlist (both in Spotify and in Facebook) but I don't see such a possibility in the preference menu of the Android app.....does it use the preferences set in the windows app or is it not possible to keep your activity private in Android?

Can somebody confirm how it really works? (it is not intuitive and it is confusing for me).

Thanks

---

@Richard wrote:

I've tested this myself a little in the office, and it seems that turning of sharing to Spotify Social in the desktop app will carry across to all platforms. So, I unchecked the box, played some music on my Android, and it didn't show up in my friends' feeds.

I even left Facebook posting on and this still worked. So I'm confident that the desktop app gives you universal control.

Anyone else care to give this a go?

---

[Joe]

@diegorr I replied to your other post.