— UNO (@realUNOgame) February 2, 2023
In 2017, Netflix tweeted that “Love is sharing a password.” Well, it recently changed the definition of affection by beginning its password-sharing crackdown.
If you have someone hitching on your Netflix account, you will be forced to choose between kicking them out or paying additional for them. In its announcement on Tuesday, Netflix said US-based users sharing their password with someone outside their household would be covered in this new policy. The number of extras you can keep in your account, however, depends on your plan type. For instance, those with the $15.49/month Standard plan can keep one extra user for an additional $7.99/month. The Premium plan, meanwhile, can keep up to two people for $7.99/month per person. On the other hand, if you are on the Basic and Standard with Ads plans, there is no option to add any extra.
The US is not the only location affected by this change. Even UK customers must now pay £4.99/month for extra users. In February, Netflix also started testing it in other countries like Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain.
According to Netflix, paying for an extra member will only cover customers living within the same country. And although a different person is paying for the account of the additional members, they will have their own passwords and profile, albeit they can’t create extra or Kid’s profiles. In its announcement, the company also shared how it determines the accounts sharing passwords with others outside their homes.
“We use information such as IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity to determine whether a device signed into your account is part of your Netflix Household,” detailed Netflix. “We do not collect GPS data to try to determine the precise physical location of your devices. If a Netflix Household hasn’t been set, we will automatically set one for you based on IP address, device IDs, and account activity.”
