Netflix announces crackdown on password sharing in four countries

Netflix announces crackdown on password sharing in four countries

Ever since the service first launched, subscribers to Netflix have made use of the fact that it provides multiple profiles by sharing their password with others. However, it has grown displeased with this fact ever since subscriber numbers started falling in recent years and announced new rules on password sharing.

These new rules started rolling out today in four more countries: Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. Password sharing rules were previously tested by Netflix in a few countries in Latin America. Effectively the changes are around setting a primary location for your account to be used, which suggests that there will be location checks when the account is accessed to determine if there is sharing occurring. The announcement does go to say that you can still watch while you travel, so how this will be implemented is not known at this time.

A Netflix account is intended for one household and members can choose from a range of plans with different features (see chart below).

Netflix is planning on offering the ability to add users to an existing plan for an additional fee, in a model slightly different to the 'family plan' offerings that other services provide. It's not known yet when these rules will be rolled out to the US or UK, but expect it in 2023.

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