Spotify's lax privacy means anyone can see the Vice President's song choices

The article discusses the "Panama Playlists" incident, which revealed the personal music listening habits of various celebrities and public figures on Spotify. While not a traditional data breach, the issue highlights Spotify's lax privacy settings, where new playlists are set to "public" by default, allowing anyone to view the music choices of users. The article explains that the unknown creator of the "Panama Playlists" simply searched for famous people and found their public playlists, which included the music choices of individuals like Vice President JD Vance, talk show host Seth Meyers, and tech figures like Palmer Luckey. The article notes that the playlists themselves are not particularly surprising or scandalous, but the incident underscores the need for users to be more aware of Spotify's privacy settings. The article emphasizes that Spotify's default settings make all playlists public, and users must manually set each playlist to "private" individually, which many may not realize. The article suggests that users should treat Spotify as a social media platform and be more mindful of their privacy settings accordingly.