Netflix Inc. appears to be tightening its practices on shared account logins among different households.
A test program is notifying some customers to sign up for their own account if they aren’t watching with the subscriber on record. In a screen prompt first reported by The Streamer blog, customers are advised, “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching.” A Netflix spokesperson told MarketWatch in an email, “This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so.”
However, whether the test leads to a widespread crackdown on shared passwords remains unclear.
Roughly one-third of Netflix accounts are shared, according to research firm Magid.