• Spotify removed "podcasts" promoting opioid sales on websites imitating online pharmacies.
• Business Insider found 200 podcasts peddling prescription medicines, which have since been removed.
• Some podcasts advertised opioids without prescriptions, violating federal law and Spotify rules.

Fake podcasts openly offering highly addictive drugs are rampant on Spotify — which is cracking down after a Business Insider investigation.

BI found 200 "podcasts" that advertised the sale of opioids and other drugs — often without a prescription, in violation of federal law — and directed users to websites posing as legitimate online pharmacies.

Many of the episodes BI reviewed were under a minute long and are less about content and more about pushing product, providing links to websites claiming to sell opioids like tramadol and oxycodone.

"Buy tramadol online in just one click from [redacted] without a prescription with legal delivery in the USA," a voice said in one seven-second podcast episode.

Another episode said: "Want to buy 50mg of tramadol online? Learn how to get authentic pain relief medications with easy checkout, trusted pharmacies, and no delivery hassles. Buy tramadol online safely today."

Spotify's platform rules prohibit content that promotes the sale of regulated or illegal drugs. Some of the podcasts were apparently removed after an X user called out the issue on Tuesday and tagged Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. Others were removed after BI flagged them to Spotify. BI could not reach any of the websites for comment.

"We are constantly working to detect and remove violating content across our service," a Spotify spokesperson told BI.

Some of the podcasts didn't contain any audio. Instead, they relied on the episode description or even the cover art to list URLs or instructions on where to buy the drugs.

BI also found over 25 types of opioids, benzodiazepines, and weight-loss medications being advertised. They included Opana, a potent opioid pulled from the US market in 2017 at the request of the Food and Drug Administration because of its high potential for abuse.

While many of these drugs are legally prescribed for chronic pain or anxiety and other medical conditions, some are linked to high rates and risk of dependence, misuse, and overdose.

Some of the "online pharmacies" promoted in the podcasts claim to have "medical experts" who can review a customer's condition yet explicitly promise to deliver drugs "quickly" and "discreetly" without ever requesting a prescription. Some of the sites said they offered prescriptions via a phone appointment.

Federal law requires prescription medications to be dispensed only with a valid prescription from a licensed healthcare practitioner. Unregulated drug sales create public health risks, especially when the drugs sold could be counterfeit, laced with unknown substances, or expired.

While the websites viewed by BI take users to a payment page, it's not clear whether they actually deliver the drugs. Customer reviews for some of the sites claim they did not receive the drugs they paid for.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at jyotimann.11. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Spotify's year-end feature has something new: an AI-generated "podcast" about your Wrapped.
• It uses Google's NotebookLM technology.
• It's neat? But WEIRD!! Very weird!!! No thank you!

One of the indignities inflicted on parents of young children is Spotify Wrapped. Each December, thousands of adults open up their year-end treat to discover the sad fact that they listened to "Baby Shark" more times than anything else.

As a parent, this has been my fate for the last few years. (My Spotify account is connected to our Amazon Echo, which means that in some years, my kids' requests for songs about potty words have ended up on my Wrapped.)

I take very little pleasure in Spotify Wrapped, although I know it's a massively popular thing that many people —presumably those who don't listen to Raffi on repeat — really look forward to.

However, this year, there's a new feature. And I struggle to imagine how anyone won't feel mildly weirded out by it: Spotify uses Google's new NotebookLM AI-powered feature to create an individualized AI-generated podcast with two talking heads discussing your listening habits in a conversational, podcast-y tone. Yikes!

I received a 3-minute podcast with a man and woman chatting about how impressive it was that I had listened to "Cruel Summer" by Taylor Swift — my 4-year-old's current favorite tune, narrowly edging out "Let It Go" this year — so many times that I was in the Top 0.02% of listeners. (I should note here that the podcast said I was in the Top 0.02%, while the main Wrapped said it was 0.05%. Possibly the podcast version hallucinated?)

I can understand why people like sharing screenshots from their Wrapped. It's normal to want to share what music you like — and what those lists say about you and your personality.

But listening to an AI podcast about it? Voiced by robots? I'm not sure anyone wants that.

Google's NotebookLM is a fascinating product — I've played around with it a little, and it is very cool, if not uncanny. You can add in text or a PDF or other kinds of data, and it will create a conversational podcast episode with two hosts — "likes" and "ums" and all.

It's got that factor about GenAI that makes you go "whoa," like trying ChatGPT for the first time to have it write a poem.

It's got the dog-walking-on-its-hind-legs element: It's impressive because the dog can do it at all, not because it's doing it particularly well. The idea that AI could generate a chatty podcast that sounds almost real is, admittedly, mindblowing. But would you want to actually listen to it? I'm not really so sure.

I've wondered what this would be used for — I assume some people find listening to something makes it easier to engage with than simply reading it. You could take the Wikipedia page for "The War of 1812," plug it into AI, and generate an engaging history podcast instead of slogging through dry text.

And in a business setting, perhaps a busy exec could upload an accounting report and listen to it while on the putting green instead of reading a stale PDF. (I tried uploading my tax return and created what may be the most boring podcast in human history.)

But NotebookLM is a pretty niche product so far — and Spotify Wrapped is a massively popular feature on a massively popular app. It's likely that this will be many people's first exposure to NotebookLM's abilities.

I imagine it will be mindblowing for many people! But I urge restraint and moderation. Although seeing a screenshot of your friends' top artists might be fun, no one wants to hear a podcast about it.