Spotify is letting record labels pay to promote songs in users' playlists

pulse

June 20, 2017 10:24 AM

The option is turned on by default in the Spotify app.

Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek.

Spotify has launched a new ad format called sponsored songs which lets labels pay to promote songs and have them appear in users' playlists.

The songs don't appear amongst your music, but instead are featured at the top of playlists.

TechCrunch spotted the new ad format, and Spotify told the site that sponsored songs are "a product test for labels to promote singles on the free tier."

Here's what sponsored songs look like:

It's possible to opt out of seeing these kind of adverts on Spotify: Go to "display options" and turn off the option titled "show sponsored songs." It's on by default, as Chris Messina spotted on Twitter.

Messina was using Spotify Premium and saw the option to disable the ads — but the ads only show up on Spotify's free, ad-supported tier.

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