Spotify recently came under fire for running recruitment ads for ICE, which ask users to "join the mission to protect America" and to "fulfill [their] mission," in the US. Despite music labels calling on the streaming service to stop serving ICE recruitment ads, Spotify doubled down. A spokesperson for the company told The Independent that the ads are "part of a broad campaign" by the US government running across different channels and that they do not violate its policies. The spokesperson advised users to just mark ads with a thumbs up or down so that the app can learn their preferences.In addition, several artists have pulled their music from Spotify recently over its CEO's, Daniel EK's, investments in European defense tech firm Helsing. The defense company builds drones, aircraft and submarines, and it also sells AI software that can analyze sensor and weapons data from battlefields. Spotify has been facing backlash for its payout rates, which artists argue are unfair and lower than what other services pay, over the past few years as well.So if you want to cancel Spotify, whether for any those reasons or another one altogether, you can follow the instructions below.How to cancel via web:1. Log into your Spotify account in your browser.2. Go to Account in the dropdown menu that shows up when you click on your Profile.3. Find Cancel Subscription under the Subscription section.4. Spotify will tell you that you'll hear ads every 15 minutes on a free account, along with the date when your premium access will end. Click "Continue to cancel" at the bottom of the screen.If you're on mobile, make sure to request the desktop site after you log into your account on your mobile browser. Take note that if you're part of a Spotify Family or Duo plan, only the plan manager will be able to cancel your subscription altogether. If you follow the same steps above as a member, you'll only remove your account from the plan, but the manager will continue paying for it.How to cancel via third-party provider:If you pay for your subscription through third-party providers, you can follow these instructions instead.Cancel via Google1. Fire up the Google Play app and tap on the icon for the account you use.2. Go to Payments & subscriptions.3. Tap on Subscriptions.4. Find Spotify among your subscriptions and tap on it.5. Tap on Cancel Subscription at the bottom of the screen, select a reason for cancellation and confirm it.Cancel via Apple1. Go to Settings in your iPhone or iPad.2. Tap on your name and go to Subscriptions.3. Find Spotify and go through the cancellation process.Cancel via carrierInstructions for this may vary, depending on your carrier. Generally, however, you can follow these steps.1. Log into your carrier account on its website.2. Find the option to manage your subscriptions under your account.3. Find Spotify and go through the cancellation process.What happens after you cancelYou'll still have access to Spotify's premium features until your next billing cycle begins. That means you still won't encounter ads and will have access to offline downloads, as well as unlimited skips and higher audio quality. You'll be able to access your Spotify library even with a free account, but if you want to find another streaming service to pay for, you can check Engadget's list of best music streaming services in 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/how-to-cancel-your-spotify-subscription-133022215.html?src=rss

My boyfriend texted me those dreaded four words: "Is your Spotify down?" Sure enough his, mine and thousands of other users' Spotify accounts appear to be down and out at the moment, with Downdetector recording over 10,000 reports from users.Spotify is apparently working on the problem. The account, Spotify Status, shared an update on X at 9:45 AM on Monday, "We're aware of some issues right now and are checking them out!"About an hour later, the company shared an update saying that the outage was resolved as of 10:34 AM ET.

Anna's Archive, the open-source search engine for shadow libraries, says it scraped Spotify's entire library of music. The group acquired metadata for around 256 million tracks, with 86 million actual songs, and is just under 300TB in total size."A while ago, we discovered a way to scrape Spotify at scale. We saw a role for us here to build a music archive primarily aimed at preservation," the group said in a blog post. The pirated treasure trove of music represents over 15 million artists with over 58 million albums.The group intends to make all files available for download for anyone with the available disk space. "This Spotify scrape is our humble attempt to start such a preservation archive" for music. Of course Spotify doesn't have all the music in the world, but it's a great start," the group wrote. The 86 million songs that the group has archived so far represent about 99.6 percent of listens on the platform. This only represents about 37 percent of the total and the group still has millions left to be archived.The open-source site is normally focused on text like books and papers, which it says offers the highest information density. The group says its goal of "preserving humanity's knowledge and culture" doesn't distinguish between media types. Of course none of this is exactly legal, and the sharing or downloading of all these files is flagrantly in violation of IP protection laws.Anna's Archive contends that current collections of music, both physical and digital, are over-indexed to the most popular artists or composed of unnecessarily large file sizes due to collectors' focus on fidelity. The group says that what it's amassed is by far the largest music metadata database publicly available. The music files will be released in order of popularity in stages.Spotify has identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping," a spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. We've implemented new safeguards for these types of anti-copyright attacks and are actively monitoring for suspicious behavior. Since day one, we have stood with the artist community against piracy, and we are actively working with our industry partners to protect creators and defend their rights."Update, December 22, 2025, 10:45PM ET: This story has been updated to add Spotify's statement.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/pirate-group-annas-archive-says-it-has-scraped-spotify-in-its-entirety-211914755.html?src=rss

Spotify announced Tuesday that it hit 751 million total monthly active users (MAUs) for quarter-four of 2025. That record-high is an 11 percent jump from the year before and a significant bump from the third quarter's 713 million MAUs.The quarterly earnings report also showed a 10 percent jump year-over-year in Premium subscribers, from 263 million to 290 million. Europe makes up the greatest number of the Swedish company's premium subscribers (36 percent), with North America coming second at 25 percent.Spotify contributes a few factors to its growth, including AI. "We consider ourselves the R&D department for the music industry. Our job is to understand new technologies quickly and capture their potential, which we've done time and again," Gustav Soderstrom, Co-CEO of Spotify, said in a statement. The entire industry stands to benefit from this [AI] paradigm shift but we believe those who embrace this change and move fast, will benefit the most." In late 2025, Spotify announced it would get rid of some of the AI "slop" on its platform and have "artist-first AI music products" - though the specifics were very vague.The company also claims that December's Spotify Wrapped was bigger than ever, with over 300 million engaged users and 630 million shares across 56 languages.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-now-has-more-than-750-million-monthly-users-124103630.html?src=rss