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. 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. If a song is “loved”, a custom radio channel will be created based on it, and when there are at least 15 of these songs, a “My Favourites” channel is unlocked. In October 2017, Spotify launched “Rise”, a program aimed at promoting emerging artists. The feature was rolled out to a small number of US-based artists by invitation only.

Fake artists

The tool allows users to generate personalized playlists from text prompts describing genres, moods, artists, activities, or creative ideas like animals, movie characters, colors, or emojis. In August 2016, Spotify launched Release Radar, a personalized playlist that allows users to stay up-to-date on new music released by the artists they listen to the most. In March 2016, Spotify launched six playlists branded as Fresh Finds, including the main playlist and Fire Emoji, Basement, Hiptronix, Six Strings, and Cyclone (hip-hop, electronic, pop, guitar-driven, and experimental music respectively). In December 2015, Quartz reported that songs in Discover Weekly playlists had been streamed 1.7 billion times. Months later, Spotify tested its own version of stories (the sharing format popularized by social apps) known as “Storyline”, and the focus is on allowing artists to share their own insights, inspiration, details about their creative process or other meanings behind the music. 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.
The most commonly perceived error is said to be caused by a lack of diverse scope within curation staff, including overlooking mainstay artists in large genres, potentially causing a categorical homogenization of musical styles; even impacting mainline artists like within hip hop with A Tribe Called Quest. Using felice bet this, users can perform various actions such as pulling playlists, launching radio stations, playing or pausing songs. Named the Car Thing, it represents the music-streaming service’s first entry into hardware devices. Spotify first announced a voice-activated music-streaming gadget for cars in May 2019. In January 2014, Spotify removed all time limits for Free users on all platforms, including on computers, which previously had a 10-hour monthly listening limit after a 6-month grace period. Users can refine playlists with additional instructions, such as “more upbeat” or “happier songs”.

Accounts and subscriptions

In December 2015, Spotify debuted Spotify Wrapped, a program that creates playlists based on each user’s most listened-to songs from the year. The features were announced by CEO Daniel Ek at a press conference, with Ek saying that a common user complaint about the service was that “Spotify is great when you know what music you want to listen to, but not when you don’t”. “Follow” lets users follow artists and friends to see what they are listening to, while “Discover” directs users to new releases as well as music, review, and concert recommendations based on listening history.

Helpful products, built with you in mind

When you sign in to your Google Account, all the Google services you use work together to help you get more done. No matter which device or Google service you’re using, your account gives you a consistent experience you can customize and manage at any time. Sign in to your Google Account, and get the most out of all the Google services you use. In April 2018, thousands of Google employees, including senior engineers, signed a letter urging Google CEO Sundar Pichai to end this controversial contract with the Pentagon. Google has been criticized for continuing to collect location data from users who had turned off location-sharing settings. The lawsuit claims Google collected data from users who had specifically opted out of tracking.

Stay connected, across the internet

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.
As of 2022, Spotify is the current sponsor of Spanish football club FC Barcelona, with music artists like Drake, Travis Scott, and Ed Sheeran collaborating with the club by changing their shirts into their artist logo, sometimes used for album promotions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre, and can create, edit, and share playlists. Spotify offers DRM-protected audio content, including over 100 million songs and over 7 million podcast titles, from record labels and media companies.
In March 2013, the five-play individual track limit was removed for users in the United Kingdom, and media reports stated that users in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand never had the limit in the first place. In April 2025, Spotify expanded its AI Playlist beta feature to Premium listeners in over 40 new English-speaking markets, including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. All other streams of selected songs outside of Spotify Radio and Autoplay remain commission-free. In November 2021, Spotify launched the City and Local Pulse charts, aimed at representing the songs listened to in major cities around the world. The feature is represented by a bell icon on the app’s main page and is available on iOS and Android.

• Mobile listeners are now able to tap on any song or search for what they’d like to play.
• For example, flight confirmations in your Gmail inbox will automatically sync with your Google Calendar and Google Maps to help you get to the airport on time.
• In March 2017, Spotify acquired Sonalytic, an audio detection startup, for an undisclosed amount of money.
• The company also decided to transform its office in Warsaw into a help center for refugees.
• In November 2020, Spotify announced plans to acquire Megaphone from The Slate Group for US$235 million.
• In September 2025 Google opened their £735m AI Centre in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire and announced their plans for £5 bn investment in AI research, in the same month that Alphabet reached market capitalisation of $3 trillion.

In a 2022 National Labor Relations Board ruling, court documents suggested that Google sponsored a secretive project—Project Vivian—to counsel its employees and to discourage them from forming unions. Also in February 2022, Google announced a $100 million fund to expand skills training and job placement for low-income Americans, in conjunction with non-profits Year Up, Social Finance, and Merit America. The company also decided to transform its office in Warsaw into a help center for refugees. Responding to the humanitarian crisis after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google announced a $15 million donation to support Ukrainian citizens. In March 2007, in partnership with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), Google hosted the first Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival at its headquarters in Mountain View. Google continued to monetize and profit from sites propagating climate disinformation even after the company updated their policy to prohibit placing their ads on similar sites.
The same December, it was announced that a $1 billion, 1,700,000-square-foot (160,000 m2) headquarters for Google would be built in Manhattan’s Hudson Square neighborhood. In March 2018, Google’s parent company Alphabet bought the nearby Chelsea Market building for $2.4 billion. In 2021, court documents revealed that between 2018 and 2020, Google ran an anti-union campaign called Project Vivian to “convince them (employees) that unions suck”. Google had previously been accused of surveilling and firing employees who were suspected of organizing a workers union. The formation of the union is in response to persistent allegations of mistreatment of Google employees and a toxic workplace culture. The coalition is made up of “13 different unions representing workers in 10 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland”.
The DoJ also sought a ban on Google re-entering the browser market for five years and restrictions on its investments in rival search or AI technologies. Google, which intended to appeal, argued that the proposals were too extreme, while also dealing with other antitrust cases involving its app store and advertising operations. On October 8, 2024, The U.S. government suggested it could request Google to divest parts of its business, such as the Chrome browser and Android, due to its alleged monopoly in online search.
The judgment claimed Google had failed to sufficiently inform users of its methods for collecting data to personalize advertising. The outage, attributed to a cloud service error and not a cyberattack, prompted a joint apology from UniSuper and Google Cloud executives, who assured members that no personal data was compromised and restoration efforts were underway. In 2017, three women sued Google, accusing the company of violating California’s Equal Pay Act by underpaying its female employees. On September 14, 2022, Google lost the appeal of a €4.125 billion (£3.5 billion) fine, which was ruled to be paid after it was proved by the European Commission that Google forced Android phone-makers to carry Google’s search and web browser apps. The abuse of dominants position has been referred to as Google’s constraint applied to Android device manufacturers and network operators to ensure that traffic on Android devices goes to the Google search engine.
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.

• A study has shown that record labels keep a high amount of the money earned from Spotify, and the CEO of Merlin Network, a representative body for over 10,000 independent labels, has also observed significant yearly growth rates in earnings from Spotify, while clarifying that Spotify pays labels, not artists.
• In December 2015, Quartz reported that songs in Discover Weekly playlists had been streamed 1.7 billion times.
• On October 8, 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against Google and Alphabet due to “non-public” Google+ account data being exposed as a result of a bug that allowed app developers to gain access to the private information of users.
• In response to the allegations about unfair compensation, Spotify claims that it is benefitting the industry by migrating users away from unauthorized copying and less monetized platforms to its free service tier, and then downgrades that service until they upgrade to paid accounts.
• Israel expressed apprehension that the data transferred to the cloud services of these global corporations might be accessible to foreign law enforcement agencies.
• In 2020, the FBI used a geofence warrant to request data from Google about Android devices near the Seattle Police Officers Guild building following an arson attempt during Black Lives Matter protests.

Google expanded its search services to include shopping (launched originally as Froogle in 2002), finance (launched 2006), and flights (launched 2011). Google also hosts Google Books, which allows users to search books in its database and shows limited previews, or the full book when allowed. In May 2022, Google announced that the company had acquired California based, MicroLED display technology development and manufacturing Start-up company Raxium. In April 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google ran a years-long program called “Project Bernanke” that used data from past advertising bids to gain an advantage over competing for ad services. The company subsequently announced that “48 employees have been fired over the last two years” for sexual misconduct. While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, they theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites.

On October 8, 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against Google and Alphabet due to “non-public” Google+ account data being exposed as a result of a bug that allowed app developers to gain access to the private information of users. On June 27, 2017, the company received a record fine of €2.42 billion from the European Union (EU) for “promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results”. On May 1, 2023, Google placed an ad against the Brazilian Congressional Bill No. 2630, an anti-disinformation law that was about to be approved, on its search homepage in Brazil, calling on its users to ask congressional representatives to oppose the legislation. In October 2006, the company announced plans to install thousands of solar panels on its Mountain View campus to provide up to 1.6 Megawatt of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the campus’ energy needs. There is no official data on the number of servers in Google data centers; however, research and advisory firm Gartner estimated in a July 2016 report that Google at the time had 2.5 million servers. Google’s services contain easter eggs, such as the Swedish Chef’s “Bork bork bork”, Pig Latin, “Hacker” or leetspeak, Elmer Fudd, Pirate, and Klingon as language selections for its search engine.
Despite the extensive global coverage, the service remains unavailable in several countries and territories, including Afghanistan, British Indian Ocean Territory, Central African Republic, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Yemen. However, there has been some concern about the music streaming platform’s social media features. Spotify Wrapped had generated two billion impressions worldwide, and more ninety million Spotify users share their Spotify Wrapped statistics online, especially through social media.