Who's listening to who?
In my Internet Communication class last week we had a guest lecture from Dr. Paul Gates a professor at Appalachian State University. A majority of the lecture and discussion was focused on how businesses can accumulate information based on consumer habits, and they can then sell that information to other businesses for marketing purposes. I found this to be extremely relevant in regards to how Spotify operates with their daily mixes and the discover weekly playlist. Similar to how a checkout at a grocery store records your shopping habits and how often you purchase products as well as how many, Spotify keeps track of how often you listen to certain artists and genres. This is the foundation of how they create your playlists each week and day. For those that do not have Spotify Premium its common to experience advertisements that are creepily similar to your interests completely separate from spotify. This is because your phone and computer record cookies and your browsing history in order to directly advertise and market to you, this is a way that companies can better reach their target markets. There are pros and cons to this method of advertising. It can be seen as invasive at times especially when receiving advertisements for oddly specific products. I think that there should be limits, there are lines of privacy that should not be crossed, however enforcing those can be difficult.
