Entertainment
Sharing Netflix passwords? Here’s how they may start charging you
The company is desperately trying to find a way to combat password sharing.
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UPDATE 1/23/2022: In a letter to shareholders, Netflix says they expect to roll out paid account sharing “more broadly” toward the end of the first quarter of 2023. More here: Netflix password sharing could be ending as soon as March. The original story follows below.
Netflix has just revealed a new way that it plans on stopping users from sharing their passwords with others for free.
As of yesterday, a Netflix account in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic consists of a single home.
According to a Netflix support page in Honduras, users will be able to add an additional home to their plan for an extra fee. But what exactly does the company mean by “home?”
READ MORE: Netflix reveals its ad-supported plan is coming early 2023
The home is the primary location where the Netflix account is held. Netflix uses information like IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity to determine what is considered a home on a Netflix account.
Netflix wants to limit password sharing, but not completely
In this test, users who share their Netflix account must add the additional location as another home on the account. And that will come with a fee of around $2.99 per home added.
So say you are the primary holder of the account. Your friend down the street has been using your login for years. Under this new test, you would have to start paying an extra $2.99 for your friend to use the account.
But the new test isn’t totally strict. Users will be able to use their Netflix accounts for two weeks at new locations without having to pay.
That is, as long as they haven’t used their account in that location before. In other words, you’ll be able to access your Netflix account while you’re on vacation and not for more than two weeks.
Additionally, you’ll only be able to add a select number of homes to your account based on your plan. Basic members can add one extra home, standard members can add two, and premium Netflix subscribers can have three additional homes on their accounts.
This is just the latest in Netflix’s attempts to manage password sharing for its service. The company is leaving a lot of money on the table by allowing people to share passwords without limits.
It will be interesting to see how the platform solves this problem after it finishes its tests.
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