[JohnFen]

(Speaking in the US)

This seems like the return of radio "payola" to me.

Payola was deemed a form of commercial sponsorship and so not informing listeners that a station (or DJ) was being paid to play a song violated FCC rules about disclosing sponsorships.

The FCC doesn't regulate online streaming, but the FTC has analogous rules that they enforce with bloggers and various "influencers". I imagine that they might be interested in this as well.