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After almost a year of warnings and testing, Netflix has finally begun its crackdown on password sharing in the US.
Anyone who shares their Netflix account login with family members or friends who don’t live at the same address will have to pay an additional $7.99 per month for each additional person. The company began sending out emails to people it found violating the rules on Tuesday and will continue to distribute them to main account holders in the coming days. The people who borrow the login will get an update when trying to log in, telling them how to open their own account.
People using an account on the go must log in from the main address every 31 days to avoid being reported.
There will be no penalty for master account members caught sharing their login information. The company simply blocks the people they share with from streaming. People who want to create their own account have the option to transfer their profile so they can watch the last episode of Selling Sunset that they watched.
Only people who pay for the “Standard” plan at $15.49 per month or the “Premium” plan at $19.99 per month have the option to pay for additional users. If they have an ad-supported “Basic” plan at $6.99 per month or $9.99 per month, this option is not available to them until they upgrade.
According to Netflix, 100 million people around the world use its subscription streaming service without paying for their own account. The company began testing this crackdown on password sharing in other countries last year, but has long announced that it would eventually arrive in the US, where the company was founded in 1997.
Critics of the enforcement say it doesn’t take into account non-traditional families and occupations or limited incomes. When a child goes to college for the first time and lives in a dorm, they must pay for an additional “Extra Member” profile. The same goes for anyone who enrolls primarily from their primary home address without returning there regularly, whether because they work on the streets, serve in the military, or are a child residing primarily with a parent who has custody , but not Netflix account.
While company policy has always stated that accounts are intended for household sharing, in the past this practice has been publicly embraced. In 2017, the official Netflix account tweeted, “Love shares a password.” And at CES in 2016, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said the company was “delighted” that people were sharing Netflix accounts, and described this as “a positive thing, not a negative thing,” according to CNET.
Streaming companies have streamlined their businesses over the past year as they struggle with increasing competition and the fact that people can only afford limited monthly subscription fees. Many have raised prices, including Prime Video, Netflix and Apple TV Plus, but no other company has embraced account sharing in the same way.
In April, Netflix also announced that it would be ending its DVD subscription service, which ships physical discs to customers — an offering that’s been around since the company’s inception.