Nothing is as simple as a quip can make it sound.
I'm obviously not a lawyer or anything but I think that this would be more compeling if Spotify was open source. "You don't want to share this? Well just remove the code then."
Here not only can't I do that but I've been a paying customer of Spotify for years and I had no idea that they even collected 90% of that stuff. In these conditions how can it be argued that I gave them ownership of data I didn't even know existed?
Would you be willing to unpack this statement a bit, please? I'm not quite sure I understand.
The big social networks have amassed their huge databases not only through information volunteered by individual members, but also by co-opting people who know those individuals (or just happened to be nearby) to provide more. For example, every time a social network's mobile app uploads an address book from someone I know when they install on their new phone, and consequently that social network knows my name and contact details, they have potentially violated my privacy with neither my knowledge nor consent. With the advent of ubiquitous devices with cameras, microphones, network connectivity, GPS and other sensors, and at the same time the developments in automatic recognition technologies based on photos, audio or video footage, the risks of exploiting network effects to gather data on unwilling subjects have increased dramatically.
I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect every person I've ever shared my contact details with or anyone who ever took a photo with me in the background to understand the implications of their devices and the software they run on them. In any case, there are going to be difficult ethical questions about balancing the rights and freedoms of multiple parties.
However, I am quite sure it's fair to require businesses on the scale of Facebook to understand the basic situation and at least not to retain or use personal data for any longer than is necessary. The GDPR and similar proposals starting to appear elsewhere are clearly trying to enshrine something like that principle in law, but everything I have seen so far suggests that the biggest data hoarders are paying lip service but still trying to get away with anything they can.
The issue being that if you text me, and I give that to Facebook, does facebook have the right to ask me for permission to give it to a 4th party? Should facebook be required to give you that information if you don't have a facebook account and request it?