Netflix’s big password-sharing ban is the talk of the town right now. Many people are already protesting against the company’s decision to reduce the phenomenon. I already explained that sharing the Netflix password with everyone and their grandmother was never a feature that came with your account. Netflix let it slide as long as it was turning a profit.
Deleting your Netflix account immediately is an exaggerated response. Especially when you don’t know how bad the password-sharing experience will be.
It turns out that Netflix will not take any action against you for sharing the password now that the ban is in place. You might not have to set up additional paid profiles on your account for now. That’s all according to a German-language blog’s discussion with Netflix.
Do not overreact to the Netflix password-sharing ban
There’s nothing wrong about Netflix looking to put a stop to password-sharing outside the household. It’s not like you go to the cinema, watch a movie, and then pass on that ticket to friends and family so they can see it for free.
If you’ve shared your password with too many users, you might consider booting some of them off your account. Maybe you always wanted to remove access to your friend’s sister’s dad but never wanted to deal with the fallout. The password-sharing ban gives you the best excuse to do it.
But there may be legitimate cases where you’re sharing the Netflix password with the members of your household that don’t actually live with you all the time. Maybe the kids are off to college, and they are on your account. Or perhaps you’re divorced but keep sharing the same Netflix account.
Whatever the case, you shouldn’t overreact now that Netflix has a password-sharing ban in place. You should not cancel the service if you still enjoy the content. But you shouldn’t pay for extra users on your account yet, either.
I know for certain that I won’t cancel Netflix. But while I support the password-sharing ban, I will still take advantage of free password-sharing for as long as possible.
Netflix won’t do anything to you if you keep sharing
According to a machine-translated version of Golem.de’s coverage, you don’t have to worry about Netflix blocking your account if you’re sharing access with people outside the household.
Netflix reportedly said in a statement that subscribers are not “threatened with termination or any other form of consequence” if people outside the household access the account.
However, things might be different if you’ve already set up households and started paying for additional users. Golem.de says that in this case, users who access the Netflix account from locations other than the main household and the extra one will get a notice that streaming is impossible. Instead, Netflix will encourage you to pay for another user.
As a reminder, you can pay for two additional users if you’re on the most expensive Netflix plan.
There is one exception here. Streaming will be possible on mobile devices. Maybe that’s a loophole that will let you beam content to Smart TVs in other locations rather than logging into Netflix on that Smart TV.
Netflix said that you can travel and use your account on a Smart TV at your destination. I’m speculating that you might have to verify that TV, as it’ll have a different address than your household. But Netflix will know it’s a temporary location.
Netflix told the German blog that no user would be banned without notice. The implication here is that actual bans might be in order down the road.
How to verify the Netflix account quickly
That said, we’re still lacking clarity on the matter. We’re still in the early days. We have no idea how often we’ll see those Netflix verification emails pop up on devices.
That’s really the only measure Netflix is enforcing right now. It can block access on a device until you confirm the location is part of your household using one of those one-time codes that expire after 15 minutes.
I’ve already shown you two ways to make sure the people who share your password get the Netflix email on time. You can use a shared email address for that Netflix account, which involves creating a new email and changing the current one. The other way is setting up auto-forwarding for Netflix emails so everyone in your password-sharing group gets them.
We’ll now have to wait and see how often Netflix will send those verification emails. And whether it’ll start banning access at any point after that.
Again, you don’t have to do anything decisive at this point. You don’t have to cancel your account or pay for extra users. But you might want to trim down the number of people who use your account, regardless of how Netflix enforces the ban.
