I have been a long time advocate of the brilliant website Last.fm. It wasn’t so long ago that I was listening to the site while writing a post on azureblues.com.

But now I’m a little suspicious.

A recent post on Tech Crunch asked the question, “Did Last.fm hand over listening data” to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). More specifically information about the playing of the new U2 album before it’s been released.

In a nutshell, the RIAA could track down people, by using Last.fm data, who have played the U2 album after “stealing” it via bittorrent.

That’s fair enough except for the fact that U2′s record companies’ Australian branch accidentally released it early for purchase online.

RIAA and Last.fm have since emerged to deny all of these allegations. But the damage is done.

Trust takes a long time to build in this internet game. I think in this case the mud may have stuck a little.

I’ll be turning off the scrobling software running on my pc (software that logs tracks you’ve listened to and uploads the information to Last.fm).

It was a great service while it lasted. But until I receive assurances (not just quotes in forums) from Last.fm they’ll not be getting my information. Broad usage data is fine. They can make all the money in the world from it as far as I’m concerned, but just don’t give unique data to outside companies.

Privacy is king.

It’s still a great site though.