Netflix is ramping up its efforts to crack down on the age-old practice of password sharing. As first announced by the company in a blog post, Netflix is beginning to test a new add-on option for customers that lets people “easily and securely” share their password with people outside of their house, but at the cost of “paying a bit more.”
Netflix password sharing could come to an end
Chengyi Long, director of product innovation at Netflix, wrote in the blog post:
“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our Standard and Premium plans. While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”
As explained by Variety, this new “add an extra member” feature will allow Netflix Standard and Netflix Premium subscribers to add “subsidiary accounts for up to two people they don’t live with.” Each of these people will gain their own profile and personalized recommendations – alongside their own login and password.
So how much will this cost? Netflix is testing this feature starting in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. The cost for adding a so-called “sub-member” will be 2380 CLP in Chile, $2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru.
In those three markets, Netflix will notify subscribers who “share their account outside their household” about this new option. A member “may be prompted to verify their account only if a device outside of their household logs in to the account.” From there, the user might be asked to verify the login “by sending a verification.”
As you can see, the details on implementation here are still a bit murky. Netflix also doesn’t have details on when, or if, it plans to expand this “test” outside of those three countries. “We’ll be working to understand the utility of these two features for members in these three countries before making changes anywhere else in the world,” the company says.
There is one nice change to go along with this crackdown on password sharing: Netflix is also testing the ability to “let subscribers transfer user profiles to new accounts.” This means that if you currently share a Netflix password with someone outside of your home, you would be able to export your profile data (including viewing history, recommendations, and My List) to your profile.
This is only Netflix’s latest effort to crack down on password sharing. Last year, the company rolled out a test where it asked users who didn’t “live with the owner of this account” to make their own account to keep watching.
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