I use an app to mute my android device's volume when "advertisement" appears in the "now playing" notification. For the past 4-6 weeks I've noticed Spotify will sometimes 'fail' to accurately update the "now playing" notification. I brushed it off as a bug, but this ToS makes me wonder if they are collecting device volume (which they can definitely do in android) and perhaps testing to see if I'm using the notifications to auto-mute? [puts on tinfoil hat]
Pandora will pause the music if it detects you muted your phone (it tells you this, not a hypothesis) so I always mute it and up the volume one bar. This way I still cant hear it but it is not technically muted.