Netflix has rolled back password-sharing restrictions that were apparently posted on its platform in error.
Earlier this week, the streamer updated its password sharing rules help center page, It noted that someone’s “Netflix account is for people who live together in the same household”. Netflix further specified that “people who do not live in your household will need to use their own account to watch Netflix”.
The update was met with severe backlashIn which many subscribers are threatening to cancel their membership.
On Thursday (2 February) Netflix responded to the situation and said that the information was shared in error.
“For a brief period of time yesterday, a Help Center article with information that applies to Chile, Costa Rica and Peru went live in other countries,” a Netflix spokesperson told Polygon. Guardian, “We’ve updated it since then.”
Independent has contacted Netflix for comment.
Since last year, Netflix has been testing “paid sharing” in three countries, where an account holder pays an additional person (identified as someone living outside the account holder’s household) to use the service. Payment is required. In Costa Rica, the additional fee is $2.99 (£2.44) per month.
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For people to have “uninterrupted access to Netflix”, support document Told that people will have to keep watching something or the other from their homes every 31 days. If they don’t, they will be asked to enter a temporary code to log in.
However, the streamer acknowledges that even if people are traveling or living between different homes, they will still be able to watch things on Netflix. Both the primary account holder and people living in the household “should not be required to verify” when viewing the device, regardless of where they are.
Netflix has been threatened with action On sharing passwords over the years. Now, after its trial run in Latin America, its most recent January newsletter Said it would “hope to roll out payment sharing more broadly” in Q1.