Spotify Users Not Thrilled About Mandatory Facebook Integration

Back when online music service Spotify first launched in the U.S., users had the option of using their Facebook ID to log in. But that all changed last week, around the same time that Facebook launched their much-derided redesign, and now new Spotify users must use their Facebook ID to log in.

“As most of our users are already social and have already connected to Facebook, it seemed logical to integrate Spotify and Facebook logins,” reads one of several statements issued by Spotify in response to negative user reaction.

Facebook issued the following defense of Spotify’s action:

Spotify chose to provide a social music experience to all of its users so it’s easy to discover music with friends from the get-go. This is similar to how apps built on Facebook work, such as Farmville and Washington Post Reader, where every user is a Facebook user. When users log in to an app with Facebook, the expectation is set upfront that they will be engaging in social mode within the app.

But we’ve received numerous e-mails from readers who are downright angry about this change.

“I kept hearing about how Spotify was better than Pandora and all that,” Steve from CT tells Consumerist. “But I don’t want everything in the world tied to a Facebook account I barely use. And I certainly don’t want everyone seeing what song I’m listening to on Spotify popping up in that ‘ticker’ thing.”

This is all just part of a much larger privacy concern involving Facebook, which not only wants users to share every aspect of their life on the site, but assumes that all users want to share. Over at Lifehacker, there is a they have taken an exhaustive look at these concerns, including how to deal with Steve’s concern about Spotify publicly listing all your listening habits.

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