But we get away cheaper than quite a few others.
Sharing passwords with friends and acquaintances has been against Netflix’s user agreement, but in practice Netflix has not cracked down on it – until now.
Camera ALASTAIR GIRL / AFP
24 May 2023, 09:07
Netflix’s long-announced settlement against friends, families and others who share account passwords is here – also in Norway. It notifies Netflix in a message.
As of Tuesday, members who share their account outside their own household should have started receiving emails informing them that they now have to pay for each user who uses the account outside what is defined as “own home”.
NOK 39
The price? NOK 39 per user, and the option to add additional members is only available on Netflix’s Standard and Premium subscriptions, not on the entry-level Basis subscription.
Standard subscribers can add up to one extra member, Premium users up to two. The Norwegian price is also considerably lower than the price in, for example, the USA, where extra members cost 7.99 dollars a month, i.e. over 80 kroner at today’s exchange rate. In Great Britain, the price is five pounds, almost NOK 70, per user.
The extra members must have their own account and their own password, but the membership is paid for by the person who holds the “main account”. For those who have Netflix access through partners, such as other streaming providers, it will not be possible to add additional members at launch.
This is what it looks like, the email Netflix has started sending out to customers who share their account with others outside their home.
Camera Netflix
A loophole?
According to Netflix, what is your household can be specified by logging into a Netflix app on a TV and using the settings menu to enter or update the household.
If you do not do this, your household will be defined automatically using information about your IP address, which devices you use and your account activity. However, Netflix is clear that they do not collect GPS data to determine the physical location of your devices.
You should still be able to use your Netflix account on the go, when traveling and anywhere else that is not on your home Wi-Fi. If you have a cabin, holiday home or other place where you often use Netflix, there is a kind of authentication process where you have to log in to the Netflix app on a mobile device in your regular home once a month – and then do the same on the cabin to “show” that it is you.
There may also be a loophole here if you share with someone near you – where you can pop in once a month and log into your account on their wifi network.
The extra members have limitations
The extra members associated with your account also have some restrictions associated with their user. For example, they can only watch on one device at a time, and they can only download content on one device at a time.
They cannot create multiple profiles on their account and they must activate their account in the same country that the account owner is associated with. From the past, Netflix has launched a function to transfer a Netflix profile to a new account, so that it becomes easy to get your history when password sharing is no longer allowed.
24 May 2023, 09:07
