From time immemorial, Netflix has been a stronghold for password sharers. Only one person in your family, friend group, relationship, or relationship needs to have an account for everyone to enjoy. Strange things. But now, the company is cracking down on this practice (in a growing list of countries) in the hopes that more of you will contribute.
In February, Netflix announced its new policy (currently limited to Latin America, Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain) that accounts should only be shared between people living in the same household. Thus, parents and their children, roommates, or romantic couples who live together can share, but children who have gone to college or couples who are dating but do not live together cannot. Or at least that’s the idea.
This is obviously at odds with the way many people use Netflix (and most streaming services) today. Whether it’s within a site’s terms of service or not, it’s not uncommon for people to share passwords with close friends, partners, or extended family. Having multiple profiles even helps with this, allowing everyone to have their own experience and recommendations while sharing one account.
What has changed?
Previously, Netflix slightly discouraged people from sharing accounts across multiple households by limiting the number of simultaneous streams allowed (although it also explicitly He encouraged the practice on social networks.). On cheaper plans, you could only stream on one screen at a time, and the more you paid, the more devices could stream simultaneously, up to four.
Now, in addition to this limitation, users in certain countries have what the company calls their “Netflix home.” This is the house primarily associated with your account and its location will be important. While Netflix has begun to be cautious about how this policy will be implemented, the general idea seems to be that a location will be designated as a home, and devices that regularly log into the service from that home’s Wi-Fi will be safe.
If a device attempts to connect to your account while away from home (which Netflix identifies using information such as its IP address and device IDs), it will need to be verified when you log in. Previously, Netflix published guides with details on how this will work. , but they have since removed much of that language from their help pages and insisted that this information It only applies to Chile, Costa Rica and Peru.. (They have since expanded to Canada, New Zealand and other countries, but not the United States. Still.)
Since Netflix has removed information about how device verification works, and since the process can vary by country, we can’t say for sure exactly how it works everywhere or how it will work if (when) it comes to more countries. However, based on previous public information and reports that users have seen, there are two main implementations.
