Audio brand Sonos is once again irritating its user base after it was discovered that the company had made a major update to its privacy policy. As noted by YouTuber and repair technician Louis Rossman, the change affects the “How we can share personal information” section.
The old policy had a line that said: “Sonos does not and will not sell personal information about our customers.” After that, the rest of the paragraph discusses how certain data practices could be considered a “data sale” in certain US states.
Now, if you look at the June 2024 update, the line about Sonos not selling personal data is gone. However, the rest of the paragraph on data practices is exactly the same.
It may be a small change, but it was enough to start a wildfire among the user base. People are not happy at all. Rossman's video was posted on the Sonos subreddit and his comments section is a non-stop barrage of people criticizing the brand.
Privacy concerns
Users of the post appear to believe that the policy change means that Sonos will begin selling customer data to third parties. One person argues that the brand is alienating its loyal customer base and wants to rebuild its business “with consumers who simply don't care about privacy.” Others echo these sentiments and as you can see the general attitude is very cynical.
Curiously, that line seems to disappear only in American politics. We checked the privacy pages of Canada, Spain, Great Britain and Australia and that line about Sonos not selling customer information is still there and in bold.
It is unknown why only US policy was changed. One comment we saw online argues that it could be because consumer protection laws in other countries may be stricter than those in the United States.
Analysis: the benefit of the doubt
You can't really blame these consumers too much for such a negative reaction. Internet privacy and data collection have been hot topics for many years, as people worry about big tech companies spying on them. It is a major concern that has proven legitimate over time. Additionally, Sonos users aren't very happy with the brand after being hurt by a recent app update that removed basic features.
However, it's possible that people are simply exaggerating things. Removing the top line doesn't necessarily mean Sonos is selling customer data to make a quick buck. In fact, this whole situation reminds us a lot of what happened to Adobe.
If you don't know, Adobe also changed their Terms of Use policy not long ago. The policy had language that led users to believe that the company would use the content they created to train its AI. Adobe has since clarified the wording of the update, assuring its customers that it won't actually look at or take anything. It was all a big misunderstanding.
We'll give Sonos the benefit of the doubt here and assume this is just a misunderstanding and that the policy change was a legal thing they had to do in the US. For more information, we reached out to Sonos and asked if could clarify what the change means for its users and we will update this story if we hear back.
Until then, check out TechRadar's list of the best Bluetooth speakers for 2024.
