Netflix Walks Back Proposed Anti-Password Sharing Measures

The days of logging into Netflix with your friend’s login info are coming to an end. Maybe?

Earlier in the week, Netflix posted plans to crack down on password sharing to their help center website. Whether or not the already-shrinking Netflix user base will be on board with it is a whole different question. Last year, Netflix’s CEO openly cited the whole password-sharing phenomenon as the reason why earnings reports didn't quite hit the projected numbers. Maybe there are other issues, such as Netflix being notorious for canceling fan-favorite shows after just one season. Maybe it's that they aren't the only game in town anymore. But we digress.

According to what was originally posted online, there would be one specific IP address that communicates with Netflix. Netflix will use this IP to create a home base. Any devices that aren’t connected to the home wi-fi for longer than a period of 31 days will be booted from the plan, and access will be blocked until either the user connects to that network, or they create one of their own.

But later the rules vanished from Netflix’s help center online. Then the company told The Streamable that “a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries. We have since updated it.” The company’s spokesperson also told the site that “if and when the company was to make a change that significant [regarding password sharing], it would not begin rolling it out without first communicating the details to customers.” So while Netflix does apparently still plan to implement certain protections against password sharing, we don’t know what they will be or when exactly they’ll go into effect.

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