Users can create, edit and share playlists, share tracks on social media, and make playlists with other users. Unlike the apps, the web player does not have the ability to download music for offline listening. The standalone app was made available to all iOS and Android users in the United States since 4 June 2019. On 31 January 2018, Spotify started testing a new Pandora-styled standalone app called Stations by Spotify for Australian Android users. The company also announced an expansion of its book catalogue to 250,000 books.

• This comes alongside other large fines against social media companies accused of hosting content critical of the Kremlin or supportive of Ukraine.
• In January 2016, Spotify and music annotation service Genius formed a partnership, bringing annotation information from Genius into infocards presented while songs are playing in Spotify.
• On 1 March 2021, Spotify confirmed that its platform would no longer have access to music from artists represented by Kakao Entertainment.
• In April 2012, Spotify introduced a “Spotify Play Button”, an embeddable music player that can be added to blogs, websites, or social media profiles, that lets visitors listen to a specific song, playlist, or album without leaving the page.
• On January 25, 2020, the formation of an international workers union of Google employees, Alpha Global, was announced.
• In June 2012, Soundrop became the first Spotify app to attract major funding, receiving $3 million (equivalent to $4,039,000 in 2024) from Spotify investor Northzone.

Social Media

In August 2024, District of Columbia U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google held a monopoly in online search and text advertising in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The lawsuit alleged that Google engaged in anticompetitive behavior by paying Apple between $8 billion and $12 billion to be the default search engine on iPhones. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google on October 20, 2020, asserting that it has illegally maintained its monopoly position in web search and search advertising.
In July 2021, Spotify launched the “What’s New” feed, a section that collects all new releases and episodes from artists and podcasts that the user follows. In June 2019, Spotify launched a custom playlist titled “Your Daily Drive” that closely replicates the drive time format of many traditional radio stations. Rap Caviar had 10.9 million followers by 2019, becoming one of Spotify’s Top 5 playlists.

Google Labs

• The aim was to help users to listen to the music they want without information overload or spending time building their own playlists.
• Google indexes billions of web pages to allow users to search for the information they desire through the use of keywords and operators.
• The company also actively funds and profits from climate disinformation by monetizing ad spaces on most of the largest climate disinformation sites.
• In 2023, Spotify launched additional features to help independent artists distributing their music on the platform reach a wider array of potential fans.
• On 19 November 2019, Spotify announced the acquisition of the exclusive rights to The Last Podcast on the Left.

In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California, which is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups. Terry Semel, Yahoo’s then-CEO, felice bet offered $3 billion to purchase the company, but Page and Brin reportedly held firm on a $5 billion valuation. Both firms were initially hesitant about investing jointly in Google, as each wanted to retain a larger percentage of control over the company to themselves. Page and Brin had first approached Shriram, who was a venture capitalist, for funding and counsel, and Shriram invested $250,000 in Google in February 1998. This initial investment served as a motivation to incorporate the company to be able to use the funds.
Another source of income was music purchases from within the app, however this service was removed in January 2013. In November 2018, Spotify announced it was opening up Spotify Connect to all of the users using its Free service, however, these changes still required products supporting Spotify Connect to support the latest software development kit. Though all three applications support real-time stem separation and mixing, this functionality is disabled on music streamed from Spotify. The Waze partnership allows Waze app users to view directions to destinations within the Spotify app and access their Spotify playlists through the Waze app. The integration also enabled Spotify within the SXSW GO app to help users discover and explore artists performing at the conference.

Premium-exclusive albums

Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. Google is Alphabet’s largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet’s internet properties and interests. It has been referred to as “the most powerful company in the world” by BBC, and is one of the world’s most valuable brands.

Initial public offering

Google reportedly said “the deal would help artificial-intelligence companies get better security and use more than one cloud service.” In July 2025, the U.S. The partnership between Google and Saudi Arabia includes collaboration with key stakeholders, such as the Public Investment Fund (PIF), to develop AI applications that will benefit sectors like healthcare, finance, oil and gas, and logistics. In November 2024, Google announced the establishment of a new AI hub in Saudi Arabia, aiming to support the Kingdom’s economic growth and technological development as part of its Vision 2030 initiative. The EU Court of Justice found that Google’s treatment of rival shopping searches, which the court referred to as “discriminatory”, was in violation of the Digital Markets Act. In September 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU), based in Luxembourg, also found that Google held an illegal monopoly, in this case with regards to its shopping search, and could not avoid paying a €2.4 billion fine.
Like HBO Max, YouTube, and Instagram which are also running ads from the campaign, Spotify defended the advertisements by stating they were part of a government campaign, which complied with its ad policies and stated that users could provide feedback or thumbs-down such ads. Some liberal users responded by cancelling their subscriptions and calling for a boycott. In July 2025, a leak containing the listening data of several politicians, journalists, and businesspeople, titled the Panama Playlists, was released online. According to journalist and author Liz Pelly, Spotify, “under the guise of AI-powered recommendations has developed a surveillance apparatus driven by emotion profiling and pseudoscience.”

Data loss

Spotify intended to use MightyTV to improve its advertising efforts on the free tier of service. In March 2017, Spotify acquired Sonalytic, an audio detection startup, for an undisclosed amount of money. The database was thought to be evidence of an impending credential stuffing cyberattack targeting Spotify as it contained the credentials of up to 350,000 compromised user accounts. This approach is not intended to raise fresh capital, but to let investors get their returns.

Get the details on how Search works — from the approach we take, to the technology behind it.

In November 2013, Google announced plans for a new London headquarter, a 1 million square foot office able to accommodate 4,500 employees. In November 2018, Google announced its plan to expand its New York City office to a capacity of 12,000 employees. On January 25, 2020, the formation of an international workers union of Google employees, Alpha Global, was announced.
Google’s Global Offices sum a total of 86 locations worldwide, with 32 offices in North America, three of them in Canada and 29 in the United States, California being the state with the most Google’s offices with 9 in total including the Googleplex. In May 2015, Google announced its intention to create its own campus in Hyderabad, India. Recognized as one of the biggest ever commercial property acquisitions at the time of the deal’s announcement in January, Google submitted plans for the new headquarter to the Camden Council in June 2017. It also has product research and development operations in cities around the world, namely Sydney (birthplace location of Google Maps) and London (part of Android development). In November 2006, Google opened offices on Carnegie Mellon’s campus in Pittsburgh, focusing on shopping-related advertisement coding and smartphone applications and programs. Called Google Hudson Square, the new campus is projected to more than double the number of Google employees working in New York City.
In addition to its 100,000+ full-time employees, Google used about 121,000 temporary workers and contractors, as of March 2019.update In 2007, Google announced a free Internet service called TiSP, or Toilet Internet Service Provider, where one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet. On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, “a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers” which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform.
In July 2013, Google introduced the Chromecast dongle, which allows users to stream content from their smartphones to televisions. In 2025, Google announced SynthID Detector, a tool that uses watermarking to identify whether content such as text, images, audio, or video was generated using Google products. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked. Google indexes billions of web pages to allow users to search for the information they desire through the use of keywords and operators.
The aim was to help users to listen to the music they want without information overload or spending time building their own playlists. Spotify gets its content from major record labels as well as independent artists and pays copyright holders royalties for streaming music. On October 6, 2025, Spotify announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring music and podcast recommendations inside ChatGPT, allowing Spotify users to discover and queue new music through conversations, rather than search.