Breaking: Netflix Announces Official Password-Sharing Policy, Notifies U.S. Customers of New Rules
Your days of mooching from your ex’s Netflix account appear to be ending. Today, the streaming giant is sending out emails to members in the United States alerting them of the new account-sharing policy. Netflix says each account is designed to be used in one household. All the people who live there are able to stream the service, whether they’re at home or on the go.
How Can You Share a Profile on Netflix?
Transfer a profile: Anyone on your account can transfer a profile to a new membership that they pay for. Presumably, that saves personal ratings and watch history.
Buy an extra member: You can share your Netflix account with people who don’t live with you, but that costs an additional $7.99 per month, per person. Premium plan users may add two additional users. Standard subscribers may add one.
What Is Netflix Telling Customers About Password Sharing?
The service began sending out a notice to users on Tuesday, May 23 alerting them of these changes and their options. In November, Netflix introduced a feature allowing customers to see who was using their account and to block them from using it in the future.
Last week, The Streamable predicted that this announcement would be coming soon after the world’s largest streamer began a similar process in the United Kingdom. Similar changes will roll out across the globe in the next few weeks. Future markets to encounter this shift include Brazil, Bolivia, Belize, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Philippines, Malaysia, Israel, Thailand, Taiwan, Switzerland, Sweden, and more.
After running numerous tests in Latin America beginning in 2022, Netflix expanded its password crackdown in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain earlier this year. The early results did not produce positive responses from customers,
So how will Netflix know if you belong to a “household”? The company will be tracking to see how often a user’s device connects to a home’s Wi-Fi signal. Presumably, if you’re only visiting the Wi-Fi signal, Netflix will flag your access.
The streaming giant originally made these new rules public on its domestic help page in January before removing them and claiming that they were published in error. However, the fundamentals of the changes remain essentially the same.
Netflix currently has 232.5 million paid accounts worldwide, but the true number of users is likely much higher as password-sharing has become common. In the past, the streamer has claimed that over 100 million people use the service, but do not pay for it. Being able to convert even a fraction of those users, who already are regular users, into paying customers, could prove to be highly beneficial for the company.
While international subscribers have continued to grow for Netflix, U.S. and Canada growth has stagnated for the last several years.
Netflix
Netflix is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 3,000+ movies, 2,000+ TV Shows, and Netflix Originals like Stranger Things, Squid Game, The Crown, Tiger King, and Bridgerton. They are constantly adding new shows and movies. Some of their Academy Award-winning exclusives include Roma, Marriage Story, Mank, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.