Jay-Z Scores 13th No. 1 Album With Magna Carta Holy Grail Amid App Privacy Flap

Rapper holds the record for solo artist with most No. 1 albums, but advocacy group wants FTC to investigate whether fans' privacy was breached with Samsung deal

By Alexis L. Loinaz Jul 17, 2013 12:17 PMTags
Jay-Z Theo Wargo/WireImage

That's a pretty mega Magna, Hova.

Jay-Z's buzzed-about new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, debuted at No. 1, moving a better-than-expected  527,000 copies, per Billboard. To put things in perspective, that's a bigger berth than Hova's ultra-hyped collaboration with Kanye West, 2011's Watch the Throne, which sold 436,000 units its first week.

Magna also notched Hova's best debut since 2006's Kingdom Come, which stormed the charts with 680,000. (His latest effort also broke Spotify's record for the most streams by an album in its first week, with 14 million.)

The album's arrival marks another major milestone for Beyoncé's hubby: It's his 13th No. 1 album, solidifying his lead as the solo artist with the most No. 1 albums in history. (Taking into account all chart-toppers, the Beatles is still ahead of Hova, with 19 No. 1 albums.)

Magna's impressive first-week numbers don't even take into account one thing: In a canny deal with Samsung, 1 million advance copies of the album were given away for free to Samsung Galaxy smartphone owners, who were able to score a copy three days before its official release date via an app  they downloaded to their phone.

That publicity stunt has now drummed up controversy: An advocacy group is calling for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Jay-Z's Samsung deal violated users' privacy.

Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Parkwood Entertainment

In order to access the album, users were required to allow the app to access personal information on Twitter and Facebook, as well as users' age, location and call history. It also enabled Samsung to post updates to users' social-media accounts.

In a complaint to the FTC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) claims that the app's setup constituted a breach of privacy.

"Samsung failed to disclose material information about the privacy practices of the App, collected data unnecessary to the functioning of the Magna Carta App, deprived users of meaningful choice regarding the collection of their data, interfered with device functionality, and failed to implement reasonable data minimization procedures," EPIC said in the complaint, per the Los Angeles Times.

Samsung, however, refutes the claims.

"Any information obtained through the application download process was purely for customer verification purposes, app functionality purposes, and for marketing communications, but only if the customer requests to receive those marketing communications," the company said in a statement.

"Samsung is in no way inappropriately using or selling any information obtained from users through the download process."