The streaming giant has flirted with a crackdown for years now.
Many of us have spent our valuable hours with streamer Netflix (NFLX) – Get Free Report (nearly 204 million per day, according to some estimates), and now the company wants us to pay up for our time.
According to the media giant, the numbers simply don’t add up when you consider the amount of people who enjoy Netflix every day versus the amount of paying subscribers.
So it will begin cracking down on password sharing in more markets, according to an announcement on Feb. 8.
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Netflix Will Roll Out New Password Policy In These Key Areas
According to a Netflix release, at least four international markets: Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain will see the new policy. It has a similar policy — already rolled out — in Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, and several other areas in Latin America.
“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account with features like profiles and multiple streams. While these have been hugely popular, they’ve also created confusion about when and how you can share Netflix. Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films,” Netflix wrote in a statement.
“So over the last year, we’ve been exploring different approaches to address this issue in Latin America, and we’re now ready to roll them out more broadly in the coming months, starting today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. Our focus has been on giving members greater control over who can access their account.”
Netflix Drew Backlash Following a Potential U.S. Crackdown
A similar policy in Netflix’s primary U.S. market leaked earlier in February, which whipped up controversy online and ultimately prompted the company to retract such plans.
“A primary location is set by a TV that is signed into your account and is connected to your Wi-Fi network,” the guidelines that were posted on the Netflix Help Center before being quickly removed. “All other devices signed into your account on that Wi-Fi network will be associated with your primary location and will be able to use Netflix.”
It later told the media that these guidelines had been posted accidentally.
“For a brief time yesterday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru went live in other countries,” Netflix said. “We have since updated it.”
Still, the U.S. Netflix Help Center currently states that “a Netflix account is for people who live together in a single household” while those “who do not live in your household will need to use their own account to watch Netflix.”
No word on whether the streamer still plans to roll out stricter password sharing guidelines in its biggest market; the company said in January that it plans to crack down “more broadly later in Q1,” which would mean sometime before the end of March 31, 2023.
Either way, this most recent move is still a substantial one, since its largest market includes both the U.S. and Canada (the latter will be affected by the new policy). These primary markets bring in in roughly 44% of its revenue.
