Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Is sharing a Netflix password cybercrime?
It will soon become, mostly, a thing of the past if the world’s largest streaming service has its way. After experimenting with a plan to crack down on password sharing in Latin America, Netflix will launch the U.S. version of this subscription identification tracking technology in March, but has been quiet on the details of how it will work. That is, until earlier this week, when a Netflix FAQ page change picked up on by the press indicated that any user watching from an account’s non-“primary location” could receive a temporary code to verify use for up to seven days maximum — to cover legitimate account user travel. But that FAQ page was later updated again to remove those details.
At stake: The future of the 100 million-plus households the company says share passwords, more than 40% of the company’s 231 million paid memberships. And beyond that, how all of the media companies migrating the last generation of linear cable subscriptions to the internet handle a financial environment in which there is a more pressing need to generate returns on the high costs of streaming. The days of Netflix’s Twitter account and HBO’s former chief Richard Plepler saying a media company’s primary goal was getting people “addicted” to streaming are over. Back in 2014, allowing people to share passwords was a “terrific marketing vehicle for the next generation of viewers,” Plepler once told BuzzFeed. A decade later, the next generation’s time to pay has come.
And yes, it looks like the crackdown may include families who share passwords with kids who are away at college.
Netflix’s terms of use limit sharing of passwords to people who live together in the same location, indicating that college kids may not be allowed. There’s a fine point here: College students often don’t change their permanent address until after they graduate. Even two analysts who follow Netflix acknowledged that their college-aged…
Read the full article here
