Spotify’s bad privacy settings just leaked Palmer Luckey’s bops

Have you ever wondered what powerful bops are listening to Spotify? You would be surprised by what you can get with a profile search – but just in case you all want in one place, there are Panama reading lists, a collection of data newly published on the musical listening habits of politicians, journalists and technological personalities, as practiced by an anonymous figure.

The site seems to have data for a certain number of notables, including the CEO of Open AI, Sam Altman, the president of the Chamber Mike Johnson, the American prosecutor Pam Bondi, and Late at night Host Seth Meyers. Five people presented on the confirmed website at The penis These data for them is correct; “Fortunately, mine is not too embarrassing,” New York Times Journalist Mike Isaac tweeted. Laura Batey of Spotify said that Spotify would have no comments before the publication of this story.

Among the notables are the vice -president JD Vance – whose reading list “Making Dinner” presents “I Want It This Way” by the Backstreet Boys and “One Time” by Justin Bieber, according to the site. Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk did not respond to a request for comments.

Taylor Lorenz, who is also presented on the site – “Take a BC” by Rihanna and “Romeo and Juliet” by saying Straits appear on his playlist, “Favs” – confirmed his list. “I especially use Spotify to listen to podcasts and what would interest me much more, that’s what podcasts like JD Vance, Karoline Leavitt, etc. listen !!” She said in an SMS. Ancient Edge The staff member Joanna Stern, who is a personal technology columnist at The Wall Street JournalConfirmed that her information is accurate and added: “The creator of the Panama Papers read lists seems to be a blind anti-third eye.”

Another star journalist Kara Swisher said the playlist scored for her was not exact. (His name is “My Peloton Music” and presents “Savage”, by Megan Thee Stallion.) But Swisher also said that she shares a peloton with his wife, so the site may have picked up his wife’s peloton’s music. Reached to comment, editor Amanda Katz, Swisher’s wife, said the playlist was “certainly not mine”. Katz added: “[Swisher] does not even really use Spotify. In conclusion, do not trust anyone. These songs may have played during a peloton class, said Katz.

This website is possible because the design of Spotify supposes that everyone wants to share everything with the whole world and makes it difficult for users to protect their privacy. It is by default that all reading lists and public profiles. To change this, users must go to the “Confidentiality and Social” menu and switch the “Public Playlists” parameter in private. However, this will not make the reading lists retroactively private; Instead, you will have to do all of this by hand on each individual reading list.

Many people use their names as a connection – which may be due to the fact that they have registered with their Facebook accounts. This makes the search for people particularly easy; I was able to find a spotify profile for an Adam Mosseri who listed the “Hang” playlist on the Panama Playlist website. Mosseri did not respond to an email asking if this account belonged to him. I found two Palmer Luckey accounts; One, “Palmer Freeman Luckey”, contained the “best music list” that Panama’s reading lists identified. “I can confirm that the playlist is real,” published Luckey on X.

It is not clear that is behind the website, nor how they obtained this data. Some of the profiles, such as that of Al Roker from NBC, include play accounts for specific songs – which are not part of the public profile. If Roker had his adjustment of “listening activity” tilted on “on”, it is possible for anyone who followed Roker, then has manually counted how many times he listened to “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John, but I cannot say it with certainty.

When The penis The staff members examined our own confidentiality parameters, one of my publishers was amazed to discover that I followed it. She thought that she had set her own profile to maximum intimacy – but when we both collaborated on the playlist of a friend, I was able to follow it. She never received a notification. And when I checked on my own profile, I was surprised to discover that I too have followers that I had never been informed.

Spotify collects much more personal data than most users think so. Look for requests, streaming history, navigation history, interaction with other users, location data, device identifiers and even data on how you maintain your devices are among the collection information listed in the company’s privacy policy. It is not possible to create a private profile; Your profile name and photo are always available for any Spotify user that you have not blocked.

The “Panama reading lists” are quite stupid as private data leave – discovering the favorite songs of people is not as scandalous as entering their email, their direct messages or other sensitive data. But this reflects a widespread evolution towards total surveillance. A similar and more serious version of this type of negligence of Silicon Valley around the confidentiality of users has led to several stories on the public transactions of VENMO of politicians.

Some of the data presented were more specific than the reading lists. According to this site, Alexandr Wang, the head of the Meta AI, played “the stubborn love” of the Lumineers immediately after the investment of 14 billion Meta dollars in the scale of the scale. Wang did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Casey Newton, my former colleague who writes the platform form, confirmed that his information was correct: his number 1 song last year was “All You Children” by Jamie XX and The Avalanches. “Here is my comment:” All your children “by Jamie [xx and the Avalanches] Absolutely slaps, “he wrote.” Highly recommended for your summer barbecue reading lists. “”

With report by Nilay Patel and Sarah Jeong.