Netflix
Netflix is now telling US customers to stop sharing accounts with people outside their household or to pay $7.99 per month for each additional member. “Your Netflix account is for you and the people you live with – your family,” Netflix says in an email aimed at customers whose accounts are used in multiple locations.
The email offers two options: move the additional person’s profile to a new membership that they can pay for separately, or spend an additional $7.99 per month to “share your Netflix account with someone who doesn’t live with you.”
Netflix announced, “Starting today, we will be sending this email to members who share Netflix outside of their homes in the United States.”
Netflix requires customers to set up a “Netflix Household” in their primary location, but family members can continue to use the streaming service in at least some other places. “The Netflix account is intended for use by a single household. Anyone living in this home can use Netflix wherever they are—at home, on the go, on vacation—and take advantage of new features like transfer profile, access, and device management,” today’s announcement reads.
Regarding how Netflix identifies customers who share accounts, the company says it uses “information such as IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity to determine if the device your account is signed in to is part of the Netflix in your home.” In an effort to allay concerns about location privacy, Netflix says it does not collect GPS data from user devices.
Netflix has been lax about account sharing for many years but started rolling out new fees for additional members in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru over a year ago. Netflix also announced plans for an ad-supported tier in April 2022 in response to slowing revenue and subscriber loss. The $6.99 advertising plan launched in the US in November 2022.
Additional members cannot be added to the $6.99 ad-supported Netflix plan or the $9.99 Basic plan. Additional member slots are only an option for the $15.49 Standard plan and the $19.99 Premium plan.
