Netflix Backtracks On Widely-Criticized Account Sharing Policies

Netflix may not be cracking down on password and account sharing after all. Earlier this week the internet was abuzz when the streaming service announced new policies that would require Netflix users to verify home devices once a month. Devices that were not connected to the home wifi could be blocked unless the Netflix plan was upgraded at a higher cost. However, those policies are no longer on Netflix's website, and the company claims they were posted by accident. 

"For a brief time yesterday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries,” a Netflix spokesperson told The Streamable. “We have since updated it.”

This doesn't mean everyone sharing accounts is in the clear, however. Earlier this year, Netflix confirmed that it will indeed be enforcing password sharing rules "later in Q1 '23," according to a January 2023 earnings report. Those proposed measures include limiting the number of users per household and charging more for extra users outside of the household.

There's reason to believe that the policy currently in place in South America will soon trickle north, once Netflix has worked out the kinks. According to The Verge, anti-password sharing methods being tested in Peru last year weren't going well because of lack of communication to users and varied levels of enforcement across accounts. And in the brief time that the policy was thought to be expanding to the United States, there was immediate backlash, with many people on social media citing a since deleted Netflix tweet from 2017 that read, "Love is sharing a password."

Some may see the backtrack as a response to earlier outrage, but if anything, it feels like Netflix is trying to buy time and hold onto subscribers before the inevitable crackdown. Enjoy these final months of password sharing while you can.

Brianna Wellen is a TV Reporter at Primetimer who became obsessed with television when her parents let her stay up late to watch E.R.