Netflix is about to launch a major crackdown on password sharing, according to a new report.
The company will introduce new changes that they hope will end password sharing between accounts, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Netflix has long taken a relatively lax approach to people sharing passwords and accounts. Though it has been officially banned in its rules, the company largely permitted accounts to be used in different households and locations.
In recent months, however, the company has seen its revenues fall and a reduction in its subscriber numbers for the first time in 10 years. One of its responses appears to have been an attempt to make it much more difficult for multiple people to share one account.
Netflix has been testing some of those new restrictions in some Latin American countries. They include a feature that looks for people it thinks are sharing accounts and encouraging them to charge about $3 for an extra add-on to allow sharing.
The company also gives the primary account holder a code that other users need to enter to get access to that account. That code changes each month, making it difficult for people to unknowingly have others using their account.
It is still not clear exactly what Netflix will do to find people who are sharing their accounts. But it collects a variety of information such as device locations and account activity that it will presumably be able to use to spot shared accounts.
It is also not clear what the company will do to encourage users to stop sharing their passwords. It will presumably find ways both of encouraging people to buy their accounts as well as making it more difficult to share them.
The company had considered other options such as including pay-per-view content so that people would be afraid to share their account for fear that people would spend money on renting, according to the new report.
Other responses to Netflix’s sliding fortunes include a new, cheaper tier that shows users ads.
