NEW YORK, (The Southern African Times) – Netflix wants you to stop sharing your password with friends, and it’s undertaking a new effort to try to stop you.
The streaming service will soon launch a test aimed at cracking down on password sharing outside of a user’s household, U.S. entertainment magazine, Variety first reported on Wednesday.
“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,” Netflix said in a blog post Wednesday.
“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.”
The test will start in the next few weeks in three Latin American countries: Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. The company will later evaluate whether to bring it to other markets as well.
Through the test, Netflix will start letting Standard and Premium plan customers add accounts for up to two people they don’t live with, for an extra monthly charge. These extra members will have their own profiles, personalized recommendations, and login and password.
In recent years, though, Netflix has taken greater action against the practice.
Last year, the company tested a prompt on viewers using accounts owned by people outside their households. It read, “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching.” Users were then asked to either verify the account with a text or email code or to start their own Netflix trial.
The cost of getting your own Netflix account has risen recently. In January, the company raised the prices of its streaming plans in the U.S. and Canada to help bankroll more original content.
