Spotify abused to promote pirated software and game cheats

Spotify playlists and podcasts are being abused by actors who inject targeted keywords and links into playlist titles and podcast descriptions (often via third-party hosts) to promote pirated software, game cheats, dubious eBook downloads and scam pages; these links lead users to survey walls, ad-laden sites, and potentially malicious Chrome extensions, and the presence of Spotify web pages in search results gives these malicious properties increased visibility.