Spotify Will Suspend or Terminate Your Account for Blocking Ads

If you don't want to listen to adverts on Spotify, then sign up and pay for Spotify Premium. Attempting to block adverts on the free version of the music streaming service is now much more likely to see your account suspended and then terminated depending on the severity of the ad blocking being carried out.

As The Verge reports, this week Spotify updated its Terms and Conditions of Use, with the User guidelines section now stating that the following is not permitted for any reason whatsoever: "circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service."

Around two million Spotify users are thought to be blocking adverts by using modified players to listen to the service. Spotify responded to that by introducing multiple detection techniques last year. If you're found to be blocking ads, expect an email warning, then a suspension, and finally a termination if you don't relent and let the adverts play (or subscribe to get rid of them).

An account termination is much more likely, and swift, if Spotify discovers you are the one creating and distributing software that blocks the ads. You do have to wonder if this will have the desired effect for Spotify, or simply make those individuals determined not to block adverts work harder to find techniques that can't be mitigated against.

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Signing up for Spotify Premium costs $9.99 a month after a 30-day free trial. As well as removing the adverts, it also allows you to play any track, listen offline, perform unlimited skips, and audio streams will be of a higher quality.