Recognition: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
- Netflix could soon restrict account sharing.
- The test is designed to ensure that people using a Netflix account belong to the same household.
Netflix has been ignoring account sharing for the longest time. Officially, the platform’s terms of use state that your account “must not be given to anyone outside your household,” but the rule was never enforced. Now it seems that the good old days of account sharing are finally coming to an end.
First discovered and verified by people at GammaWireNetflix will send out an alert asking streamers to create their own account if they don’t live with the primary account holder.
The test currently seems limited to a small group of users, but it shows that Netflix is at least considering the option of restricting account sharing.
Users who are on another user’s Netflix account will see the following pop-up message when they sign in:
If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you’ll need your own account to keep looking.
The alert will then ask them to verify that they are the primary account holder with a verification code sent via email or text. There is also an option for later review.
Previously, those who received this warning could bypass it by selecting the “Check Later” option. Getting the verification code from your friend whose account you are using isn’t that difficult either, but it’s certainly not very convenient for all parties.
Interestingly, Netflix is also offering users a free 30-day trial as part of the notification. The streaming service had long ago withdrawn that offer, but it’s a way to get account sharers to sign up independently.
A Netflix spokesman said The streamable“The purpose of this test is to ensure that people who use Netflix accounts are authorized to do so.”
It is not clear how the service plans to determine if users are in the same household. IP addresses and other identifiers may be checked to determine this, but nothing has officially been confirmed.