Netflix is stepping up its attempts to combat the long-standing habit of password sharing.
As the business initially revealed in a blog post, Netflix is testing a new add-on option for subscribers that enables users to “simply and securely” share their password with anyone outside their home, but at the penalty of “paying a little bit extra.”
The sharing of Netflix passwords may come to a stop.
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.”
Variety reports that the new “add an additional member” function would let Netflix Standard and Netflix Premium members to establish “subsidiary accounts for up to two persons they do not live with.”
Each of these individuals will receive a unique profile and individualized suggestions – in addition to a unique login and password.
How much, therefore, will this cost? Netflix is currently beta testing this functionality in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. A “sub-member” will cost 2380 CLP in Chile, $2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru.
Netflix will notify subscribers who “share their account outside their household” about this new option in those three markets.
A person “may be requested to authenticate their account only if an account is accessed from a device outside of their household.” The user may then be prompted to verify their login “by emailing a verification.“
As you can see, the implementation specifics are still rather hazy. Additionally, Netflix has not stated when or if it intends to expand this “test” outside those three nations.
“We’ll conduct research to determine the utility of these two features for members in these three countries before implementing changes globally,” the company says.
Netflix is also investigating the option to “allow members to migrate user profiles to new accounts” in conjunction with this crackdown on password sharing.
This implies that if you presently share your Netflix login with someone outside of your household, you may export your profile data (including watching history, recommendations, and My List) to your profile.
This is Netflix’s latest attempt to combat password sharing. The business conducted a test last year in which it requested viewers who did not “live with the owner of this account” to create their own account in order to continue viewing.
