Netflix limits account sharing in four more countries

Netflix has announced it will introduce restrictions on password sharing in four more countries: Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.

Customers in these countries will be asked to pay an additional fee if they want friends and family who don’t live with them to share their subscription.

The move follows a crackdown on password sharing in South America.

The media giant estimates that 100 million people around the world share accounts.

The decline in revenue from the joint accounts hurt Netflix’s ability to invest in new programming content, the company said. It has said it will roll out the new approach to more countries in the coming months.

“Over the past year we have explored various approaches to address this issue in Latin America and we are now ready to roll them out more broadly in the coming months, starting today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. ‘ it said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Previously, it was easy for subscribers to share their username and password with friends outside of their home.

In 2017, Netflix even appeared to sanction the practice when it tweeted “Love shares a password”.

But growing competition in the streaming market, and customers cutting back on subscriptions as the cost of living increases, has prompted Netflix to focus on propping up its revenues.

The company said allowing accounts to be used by multiple people in households “created confusion” about when and how people could share.

Members in Canada, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal would now be asked to set up a “primary location” for their account and manage who has access to it.

Members can continue to watch Netflix while traveling, both on personal devices and at other locations such as logging into a hotel, it said.

For CAD 7.99 (£4.92), Canadian subscribers can add an additional member as a “sub-account,” according to the blog, with a maximum of two sub-accounts per subscription.

The fee would be similar in New Zealand at NZ$7.99 (£4.17). There would be a price difference for sub-accounts between Portugal at €3.99 (£3.54) and Spain at €5.99 (£5.32).

Netflix’s Chief Operating Officer Gregory Peters acknowledged last month that the changes weren’t “universally popular” and warned investors to expect some cancellations.

He said the company expects to eventually recoup those losses.

In the first half of 2022, Netflix saw a sharp drop in subscriber numbers. Hundreds of jobs have been cut and prices increased to cover rising costs.

In November, it rolled out a cheaper ad-supported option in 12 countries, including most of Europe, the UK, and the US.