Article content continued

The company said this year that it had more than 140 million regular users, with 50 million paying for monthly subscription plans and others using a free service that comes with targeted ads.

Spotify’s marketing executives said last year that they avoided lines that appeared to be laughing at people’s habits in favor of those that celebrated unusual behavior. They also said they sought permission from people when using their playlist names in ads. The people were usually delighted to be asked, the executive said, who noted that the data collection wasn’t a surprise given that that’s how Spotify provides users with its weekly recommendations and year-end lists.

People and publications such as AdWeek and AdAge called the campaign “amusing,” “playful” and “hilarious.” While that has largely continued this year, there has also been criticism that some of the messages veer too close to making fun of users.

And the Netflix hubbub didn’t seem to help.

Netflix, which has more than 100 million members, emphasized that the use of data to better serve users was a main part of its business and that its behavioral data was collected anonymously.

The company has frequently shared interesting information about viewers’ habits in the past, said Jonathan Friedland, a Netflix spokesman. He added that last week’s tweet might have inspired an intense reaction in part because “it was brought down to an individual level as opposed to a broader trend level.” But he pointed out that Netflix does not use customer data to sell ads on its platform, as Google and Facebook do, or sell it to other entities.

Tidbits on Netflix viewing habits are “fascinating to people,” Friedland said. “It’s not like you’re breaching anybody’s privacy, because the core proposition here is we know you and try to put the right” films and TV series in front of you.

The New York Times