Are you a fan of audiobooks? If so, you may have recently heard that Spotify and Apple’s agreement to allow the tech giant access to some of the streaming platform’s audiobooks was recently halted.

Back in May of this year, Spotify and Apple announced a new deal that allowed Apple to make use of some of the streaming service’s content in order to train machine learning models. This would allow them access to snippets of audiobooks to develop a better understanding of the natural language used in audio content.

However, the deal quickly raised concerns due to it infringing on user privacy and giving Apple access to its competitors’ data. It stirred conversations surrounding the power tech companies wield and the ability for them to utilize data from the users and companies that use their platforms.

Shortly after, the two decided to take a step back from the deal, due to the intense public backlash and concerns that were being raised. A spokesman from Spotify stated, “We heard from some of our users that they were not comfortable with the agreement as written. We are in the process of reviewing our internal privacy and data controls and will look to put something in place that provides our users with the comfort and assurance they expect.”

While this deal has been put on hold, there are still questions surrounding the implications of it and what it could mean for user privacy in the future. It remains to be seen if this may have an influence on any future deals between Spotify and Apple, but one thing is certain, conversations are still being had surrounding the power and influence of tech companies.