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Twitter, Spotify, Reddit suffer Internet outage in US

The outages happened as hackers launched a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn’s servers. Photo: AFP

Some major Internet companies suffered service disruptions on Friday due to what Internet infrastructure provider Dyn said was a cyber attack that affected some sites, mainly for users on the US East Coast.

Some US Internet users had trouble accessing sites including microblogging site Twitter , music streaming service Spotify, discussion site Reddit and news site Vox, but others found the sites accessible in Europe or via mobile phones.

Amazon’s web services unit said on its site that it had identified the root cause of the issue and was working to resolve it.

“Customers may experience failures indicating ‘hostname unknown’ or ‘unknown host exception’ when attempting to resolve the hostnames for AWS services and EC2 instances,” Amazon said in the announcement on its site.

Dyn said what it described as an “attack” was mainly affecting the East Coast and that its engineers were working on it.

The outages happened as hackers launched a large distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn’s servers, tech news site Gizmodo reported.

An FBI representative said she had no immediate comment on the outages.

Dyn is a Manchester, New Hampshire-based provider of Internet infrastructure services, including managing DNS activity that connects a user to a website’s servers.

Dyn’s website says customers include some of the world’s biggest corporations and Internet firms: Pfizer, Visa, Netflix and Twitter, SoundCloud and BT.

A company representative could not immediately be reached to clarify Dyn’s statement, made via Twitter, on the outages. Reuters

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Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Becomes Chairman as Co-Founder Steps Down

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Becomes Chairman as Co-Founder Steps Down
Spotify co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Ek is consolidating power over the world’s largest music streaming service, taking on the role of chairman ahead of a planned initial public offering as soon as next year.

Martin Lorentzon, a co-founder of Spotify, is stepping down from his role as chairman after 10 years, a Spotify spokeswoman said in an e-mail. Lorentzon will become vice chairman, he said Thursday on his Twitter feed.

(Also see: Spotify Debuts in Japan, Complete With Karaoke Lyrics)

“I look forward to another 10 years at Spotify as vice chairman,” Lorentzon said.

Ek is leading the company as it prepares to make its case to public-market investors and takes on a growing list of rivals, including Apple, Amazon and Pandora. He’s taking a page from other technology industry founders such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – who maintain tight control over the leadership and direction of their companies – as he oversees a growing staff spread across Stockholm, London, New York and Los Angeles.

The company is in the midst of critical negotiations with record companies that will determine how much Spotify pays to carry music on its service. The outcome will help determine whether the company can bend itself toward profitability, as it currently pays most of its revenue back out in the form of royalties to labels and publishers.
Spotify last month surpassed 40 million paying customers, and has 100 million monthly users including its free, ad-supported product. It generated more than $2 billion in revenue last year but remains unprofitable.

(Also see: Spotify Said to Be in Advanced Talks to Buy SoundCloud)

Earlier this year, Lorentzon joined venture capitalist and Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, former Finance Minister for Sweden Anders Borg and several other business leaders in signing an open letter calling for reforms in Sweden’s education, tax and housing industries, and warned that failure to do so could force businesses from the Nordic region’s biggest economy.

Tags: Spotify, Music Streaming Service, Music, Internet, Home Entertainment, Apps

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Spotify Free Users Complain of Malware-Infested Ads; Company Addresses Issue

Some Spotify Free users were treated to malware-infested ads with their ad-supported music streaming service. Some users have reported on the company’s forum that random, malicious ads pop-up on the default browser while running Spotify’s freemium service.

The Next Web reports that while the original report was based on a Windows 10 machine, the malware also seems to pop up on other operating systems as well including Linux and macOS. Spotify has acknowledged the malvertising issue and told Engadget that the issue is an isolated on and has since “shut it down”.

(Also see: Spotify Debuts in Japan, Complete With Karaoke Lyrics)

“If you have Spotify Free open, it will launch – and keep on launching – the default Internet browser on the computer to different kinds of malware / virus sites,” wrote user Tonyonly on the company’scommunity page. “Some of them do not even require user action to be able to cause harm,” he added.

In a reply to the user’s complaint, Spotify said, “We’ve identified an issue where a small number of users were experiencing a problem with questionable website pop-ups in their default browsers as a result of an isolated issue with an ad on our Free tier. We have now identified the source of the problem and have shut it down. We will continue to monitor the situation. If you see this issue again, please let us know the exact date and time in this thread.”

In 2011, Spotify faced a similar issue where it displayed malicious ads to some users. The company rectified the problem and issued a public apology.

While Spotify confirms to have fixed the issue, users should still maintain caution and download ad-blockers if running Spotify Free, or shift to the company’s ad-free version instead.

Tags: Spotify, Music Streaming, Streaming, Malware, PC, Laptops, Virus

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Spotify Says boom Has Quickened seeing that Apple song’s launch

track streaming service Spotify has seen a quicker pace of boom since the release in June last yr of rival Apple song, a top government stated on Monday.

Spotify, which become created in Stockholm 10 years ago, now boasts of getting near a hundred millionusers in more than 59 markets, notwithstanding growing opposition and, so far, a loss of income.

“it is tremendous that Apple is in the sport. they are really elevating the profile of streaming. it’s milesdifficult to build an industry in your very own,” Jonathan Forster, a vice chairman and one among its firstpersonnel, instructed Reuters in an interview.

“considering the fact that Apple track commenced we’ve got been growing faster and adding moreusers than before.”

“it might be horrible if we had been just taking each different‘s users or to analyze there has been only a ceiling of a hundred million users – I do not assume this is the case,” stated Forster, who had simplylower back to Stockholm from the Coachella Valley track and humanities competition in California.

Spotify now has 30 million paying users, making it the market leader in music streaming, while Apple musichas pronounced having 13 million paying subscribers considering its release final yr in over one hundredinternational locations.

however the organisation is facing competition on more fronts than just Apple, from gamers such asPandora Media Inc and newer rivals inclusive of German start-up SoundCloud and US tune manufacturerand rapper Jay Z’s Tidal. meanwhile Alphabet Inc’s Google is competing with both YouTube and Google Playsong.

Forster stated having multiple streaming offerings become now not sustainable in the long run.

“My internet history might inform me that there is possibly not going to be that many sizeable players,and then maybe smaller area of interest cases … maybe there can be a classical track streaming service,” he stated. “it’s a tough business.”

requested approximately acquisition possibilities, Forster stated destiny purchases could be on a similarscale to its latest offers which will bring on new groups and era.

“I wouldn’t be amazed to see Spotify retain to invest in areas which might be relevant or adjacent to ourbusiness,” he said.

sales will hold to return largely from subscriptions however Spotify will even hunt for different income inregions inclusive of concerts, vending and video, although Forster changed into quick to add that thecompany become “now not seeking to be a Netflix”.

The business enterprise on Monday released a brand new video supplying for you to include one of a kind content material, like brief, behind-the-scenes videos of artists.

And Spotify has no intention of slowing its tempo of growth, having said in March that it had raised $1 billion in convertible debt from US firms TPG Capital and Dragoneer funding group.

Forster stated that it was reassuring that the organisation‘s conversion price for turning new users of theadvertising–based totally carrier into subscribers, had held up at 25 to 30 percent, in spite of its userboom.

“That ought to have a terrible impact on the conversion rate however it hasn’t,” he said.

requested whether Spotify may be an acquisition goal for a bigger generation enterprise like Google or fb, Forster stated: “i’ve always felt Spotify likes being Spotify. we’ve fought to get to wherein we’re nowadaysand we’re pretty glad and it might be emotionally difficult not to be us, however who is aware of?”

“I suppose that people have definitely woken up to the opportunity of streaming. we are able to see thatit’s miles simply the start. we’ve got never grown quicker than we’ve.”

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Tags: Apple tune, facebook, Google Play song, home entertainment, internet, Netflix, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tidal, YouTube

Spotify Says It’s Reached 30 Million Subscribers

Leading streaming service Spotify said Monday that it had reached 30 million paying subscribers as the company suggested it would keep expanding to more countries.

The milestone was announced by Spotify’s chief executive Daniel Ek as he commented positively about President Barack Obama’s historic visit to longtime US adversary Cuba.

“We have 30 million Spotify subscribers, but none of them are in Cuba … yet. So cool to see Cuba opening up!” the 33-year-old Swedish entrepreneur tweeted.

Streaming – which allows unlimited, on-demand listening – has been rapidly growing in recent years and transforming the music industry, with a growing number of rivals seeking to challenge Spotify’s early dominance.

Industry watchers had long believed that Spotify was approaching the 30 million mark but the company, which is privately held, does not release figures on a systematic basis.

Spotify last gave a formal update in June when the company said it had 20 million paying subscribers out of more than 75 million regular users.

In a controversial point for some artists, Spotify allows free access to listeners who are willing to put up with advertisements. The paid tier costs $9.99 (roughly Rs. 670) a month in the United States.

Spotify, which is estimated to be worth $8 billion (roughly Rs. 53,212 crores), is available in 58 countries – mostly advanced economies but also including several developing states in Latin America.

Apple Music, launched in June by the tech giant as it saw the future in streaming, has quickly become the second leading force, announcing last month that it had reached 11 million subscribers.

Paris-based Deezer, which is strong in Europe but has a small presence in the United States, says it has six million paying subscribers, while Rhapsody, established in 2001 as the pioneer of streaming, had 3.5 million as of December.

Tidal, a project led by rap mogul Jay-Z and other stars that emphasizes high-quality audio and exclusive releases, said in September that it had one million subscribers but has not given further updates.

Faced with the challenges, Spotify recently added video content and reached a settlement with a music publishers’ group in hopes to averting costly lawsuits over royalties.

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Tags: Apps, Home Entertainment, Internet, Online Music, Online Music Streaming, Spotify

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