“It’s crazy that we can’t find out I think in the future we’re going to look back and see this as the Wild West of big tech.” “With these powerful digital platforms possessing considerable influence in contemporary society, their users and society at large deserve more clarity as to how recommendation algorithms are functioning,” Dr. These two companies, and many more, aren’t being transparent about their data collection practices. However, their work highlights the magnitude of this problem in general. Ultimately, the team at UA didn’t completely uncover how the platforms’ algorithms function. In my opinion, the Terms of Use should specify that.” “That’s not to say that this is an evil thing – the problem is that they’re not transparent about how the matching occurs. I don’t think users fully understand or know about how Tinder’s algorithm works, and Tinder goes out of its way not to tell us,” Bartlett explains. “Tinder has previously stated that it matched people based on ‘desirability scores’ calculated by an algorithm. Study co-author Matt Bartlett, School of Law, describes the dating app as “one big algorithm”. “In their recommendations (and playlists for that matter) Spotify is also likely to be pushing artists from labels that hold Spotify shares – this is anti-competitive, and we should know about it.” What about Tinder? “Spotify promises that the ‘playlist is crafted just for you, based on the music you already love’, but Spotify’s Terms of Use detail how an algorithm could be influenced by factors extrinsic to the user, like commercial deals with artists and labels,” Dr. That’s a whole lot of legal lingo, but researchers say what it really means is Spotify has afforded itself plenty of room to legally highlight content to specific users based on commercial agreements. The current version also states, “the content you view, including its selection and placement, may be influenced by commercial considerations, including agreements with third parties.” The current policy written in 2021 permits Spotify to collect users’ photos, location data, voice data, background sound data, and even additional varieties of personal information. “In the 2012 iteration of its Privacy Policy, Spotify’s data practices only included basic information: the songs a user plays, playlists a user creates, and basic personal information such as the user’s email address, password, age, gender, and location,” Dr. For example, Spotify’s Privacy Policies reveal the company collects much more personal information than it used to years ago. The research did produce interesting findings. It makes it difficult for academic researchers and certainly for the average user,” Dr. “They tend toward the legalistic and vague, inhibiting the ability of outsiders to properly scrutinize the companies’ algorithms and their relationship with users. Companies are facing more and more requirements to inform users about personal data collection, but study authors say even the current iterations of the documents are hardly user-friendly. Over just the past decade, Spotify and Tinder have re-written their legal documents numerous times. “People might think they’re more benign, but they are still highly influential.” “They have been largely overlooked, compared to bigger tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Tik Tok etc who have faced more scrutiny” Dr. Researchers chose Tinder and Spotify specifically because both platforms rely heavily on recommendation algorithms. Fabio Morreale, School of Music, in a university release. “Despite their powerful influence, there is little concrete detail about how exactly these algorithms work, so we had to use creative ways to find out,” says Dr. Study authors say companies collecting personal data are usually very resistant to academic scrutiny. Many users consider both to be the premier companies in their respective fields. Tinder is a dating app available in over 190 countries. Spotify is a music service boasting over 180 million premium subscribers. Now, researchers at the University of Auckland decided to analyze the Terms of Use and Privacy Policies of both Spotify and Tinder for clues. The companies doing the gathering are often reluctant to answer those questions. So, what type of data exactly is being collected, and how is it being used? From the next song on your workout playlist to potential dates for Friday night, these suggestions hold real-world implications. All of your favorite apps are constantly collecting your personal data to help form algorithmic recommendations just for you. AUCKLAND, New Zealand - We watch our phones, and our phones watch us.
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