Starting with today’s update of the ListenBrainz server, we now require new account sign-ups to provide a valid and verified email in order to submit your listens. Existing accounts have until 1 November 2021 to meet this requirement, with users being reminded to add their email addresses when they log in. To avoid losing listens come November, we urge you to add an email address to your account now.
We dislike taking this step, but sadly we’ve seen an uptick of spam listens (why???) being submitted to ListenBrainz. Having a verified email address will deter some people from submitting spam listens, but most importantly it allows us to contact users about their listen histories. Sometimes it can be hard to judge if someone’s listening history is not particularly diverse or if they are a spammer.
Having an email allows us to contact users whom we suspect of spamming, ensuring that we don’t delete valid user profiles.
Thanks!
MetaBrainz Blog 