Summary List Placement
Netflix is going to start cracking down on one of the oldest traditions in subscription streaming: password-sharing.
According to a report from The Streamable’s Jason Gurwin, Netflix has started testing a new prompt when customers attempt to use a Netflix account that belongs to someone outside their household.
“If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching,” the prompt says. Users will then be directed to either verify the account with a text or email code, or start their own free, 30-day trial.
The feature is currently being tested only on TVs.
A Netflix spokesperson did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment but told The Streamable that the test is “designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so.”
Sharing passwords with people outside of your household is already forbidden in Netflix’s terms and conditions, but the streaming giant hasn’t enforced it in the past. The company currently limits the number of devices on which you can simultaneously stream its content, which is dictated by your subscription tier.
Netflix does not currently place a limit on how many devices can be logged into your account at one time.
Although Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said in 2016 that password-sharing is “something you have to learn to live with,” there have been increased efforts in recent years to clamp down on the practice. Bloomberg reported in 2019 that Netflix, HBO, and a group of cable companies had formed a coalition to figure out “consumer-friendly” ways to limit shared passwords, like text codes or required, periodic password changes.
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