Slacker Radio released a new portable player called Slacker G2. Slacker consumer electronics, including the G2 Personal Radio Player, have since been discontinued in favor of an emphasis on smartphones and other mobile applications. In April 2008, the company announced agreements with top music publishers, including EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music. These agreements, signed before the Slacker Portable Player (since retired) launched, allowed Portable Player users to listen to cached Internet radio stations and premium radio users to save songs for later playback. On 13 February 2013, Slacker retired its original look and logo
Criticism of Spotify an apology on the Spotify blog by Ek, in which he wrote that "We should have done a better job in communicating what these policies mean and how any information you choose to share will – and will not – be used", along with details on what features the permissions would enable. An updated privacy policy, with "clearer language" focused on helping users, rather than lawyers, understand its contents, was rolled out in September 2015. In August 2015, "Billboard" reported that Spotify was among the streaming services influenced by "pay for play", in which labels pay for songs to be