Spotify adds Private Listening to quell Facebook complaints

Spotify has added a "Private Listening" feature to its streaming music service, allowing users to temporarily – or, indeed, permanently – conceal what tracks they're listening to. Billed as a way to "temporarily hide your guilty pleasures" by the company, the move follows widespread criticism at the close integration between Spotify and Facebook.

That integration – which now means all Spotify sign-ups will need a Facebook account – had seen users bombarding their Facebook walls with information on what music they were currently playing. In return, Spotify offered six months of unlimited streaming, something the company says around 250,000 people a day are clamoring for.

Whether this private listening feature will be sufficient to diffuse complaints remains to be seen, though Spotify did go on record earlier this week with a more in-depth description of the privacy setting. For a temporary fix, meanwhile, you can enable Private Listening via the new option in the File menu of the Spotify app.