Netflix on Wednesday began its shared account crackdown in four new markets — Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain — as the streaming giant seeks to convert moochers into paying subscribers.
As part of the rollout, primary account holders will be required to set the location of their household, which is defined as people who live in the same location as the primary subscriber. Each member of the household will still be able to use their Netflix accounts while traveling and the company will not be requiring a verification code for members accessing their accounts from outside of the primary location, a Netflix spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
That being said, the streaming giant will determine if a user is not part of a household — and, therefore, mooching off of an account — based on information like whether a device has used the Wi-Fi from the primary location at least once a month, the spokesperson added.
Should that be the case, those users will be prompted to create their own Netflix accounts or have the primary account holder add them to the subscription for an additional price, a feature Netflix has called “paid sharing.”
Users in the four regions impacted beginning Wednesday will be able to add up to two people outside of their households for an extra CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, 3.99 euros in Portugal and 5.99 euros in Spain.
The rollout comes after Netflix initially updated its Help Center website last week with a post that led to confusion around how the streamer would be enforcing its account sharing crackdown in the U.S. Included in the updates — which have since been taken down — were requirements that devices not associated with the account, or accounts “persistently” being accessed outside of the household, would need to enter a four-digit verification code sent to the primary account holder.
Netflix has not yet rolled out paid sharing in the U.S. but is expected to do so in the coming weeks or months. The most updated language on the Help Center for the U.S. now reads, “A Netflix account is meant to be shared in one household (people who live in the same location with the account owner). People who are not in your household will need to sign up for their own account to watch Netflix.”
