Netflix Testing Ways to Curb Different Households From Sharing Passwords

In this photo illustration a computer and a mobile phone screen display the Netflix logo in Arlington, Va., on March 31, 2020. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Streaming giant Netflix plans to roll out a new feature that would prevent different households from sharing their Netflix passwords by charging them additional fees.

The platform announced in a statement on March 16 that it has been working for the past year on a feature that will allow members who share their Netflix passwords with someone outside of their household to do so “easily and securely, while also paying a bit more.”

Netflix said it hopes to launch the new account-sharing options in the next few weeks. The new methods will be tested on members in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, Netflix said.

“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,” Netflix said. “As a result, accounts are being shared between households—impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”

The streaming service said that members on its standard and premium plans will be able to add subaccounts for up to two people they don’t live with, which will give them their own profiles and passwords as well as personalized recommendations. This will cost—at the lowest price—the equivalent of about $2 in each pilot country.

Members of Netflix’s basic, standard, and premium plans will also have the ability to enable people who share their accounts to transfer profiles to a new account or an extra member subaccount.

“We recognize that people have many entertainment choices, so we want to ensure any new features are flexible and useful for members, whose subscriptions fund all our great TV and films,” the streaming service said. ”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,” it added.

While the new feature is still being tested, the move signals a push by subscription-based Netflix to crack down on unauthorized password sharing.

In 2021, the streaming giant began rolling out a new test message that displays a warning to some users who attempt to share their passwords with individuals outside of their households.

Users received an email or text verification code to authenticate their accounts along with the message, “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching,” Variety reported,

According to Netflix’s terms of service, “any content accessed through the service are for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.”

Nearly 40 percent of Americans admit to using someone else’s streaming login and password, of which roughly one-third do so without the account holder’s permission, according to a 2021 LendingTree survey of 1,500 Americans on their streaming habits.

Earlier in 2022, Netflix announced it would be raising its U.S. monthly subscription prices by $1 to $2 per month depending on the plan, in an effort to help pay for new programming.