Spotify Will not Launch in Russia

The streaming service abandoned its plans to start offering its services in Russia, probably because of “unstable economic and political situation in the country”. After Spotify recruited former Google executive to lead its push into Russia, he had reportedly written to its partners saying that the launch had been cancelled.

He informed the partners that the Swedish company refused to launch in the country in the foreseeable future due to a number of reasons, including the economic crisis, the political situation, and the new legislation for the worldwide web. However, since the statement referred to the “foreseeable future”, it seems that Spotify may revisit its decision if economic and political conditions change. The former Google executive also revealed that he would officially leave the company in a few days.

As for the streaming service itself, it has not yet commented on the decision. Apparently, the company faced problems reaching deals with mobile operators and was also concerned about the high level of music piracy within Russia. So far, Spotify has launched in 58 countries all over the globe, including Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria and others in eastern Europe.

By the way, Spotify was not the first company to express concerns about conditions in Russia: other tech giants also had to make some moves because of the country’s legislation. For example, back in 2014, Google had to shutdown its engineering office in Russia because of the new legislation that requires online companies to store data on Russians onto servers inside the country, or face being blocked.