Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, writing on the company weblog:

In our new privacy policy, we indicated that we may ask your permission to access new types of information, including photos, mobile device location, voice controls, and your contacts. Let me be crystal clear here: If you don’t want to share this kind of information, you don’t have to. We will ask for your express permission before accessing any of this data – and we will only use it for specific purposes that will allow you to customize your Spotify experience.

The biggest problem with this privacy policy kerfuffle (which Kirk McElhearn wrote a great piece on) is that Spotify didn’t do a great job explaining how this information was actually going to be used. All of the uses of personal information that Daniel Ek details seem perfectly reasonable, but why wasn’t this clearly stated in the privacy policy to begin with?

Luckily, Spotify has learned the error of their ways and will be making the necessary changes:

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.

For Spotify’s sake, I hope this hasn’t hurt their reputation too much. And although Apple Music will likely have the bulk share of this market within a year or two, I’d prefer there to be as much competition as possible — which is always better for consumers. I hope this is simply an extremely uncommon oversight that Spotify will be more cognizant of preventing in the future.