Just days after announcing measures to restrict account sharing on its service, Netflix appears to be backing down… but temporarily. The platform should come back with a potentially more relevant protocol to counter this popular practice.
Through the FAQ on its official website, Netflix detailed a few days ago its new terms intended to restrict the sharing of accounts between users. This widespread practice represents a colossal deficit for the platform, so you want to get rid of it as soon as possible to increase your revenue.
However, these new rules have been removed by Netflix. We actually learn from BFM technology that the SVoD service has removed from its FAQ any mention of the new coercive measures announced on February 1. Instead, a return to the previous rules specified in the Netflix France help center. However, this setback should be temporary, the time for the platform to develop a new approach to more effectively, and perhaps less brutally, counter account swapping.
A communication error in our favor… but for how long?
as reported bfm, a Netflix spokesperson contacted by an American media outlet gave a little more information about this setback: it would be linked in this case to a premature publication of rules applicable only in South America. “For a short time, a Help Center article was published in other countries with information that is only applicable in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru. We have since updated it.“, explains the person concerned without, however, saying much more at this stage.
As a reminder, these measures provided, for example, that a user who uses a smartphone to view content on Netflix must launch the application at least once a month from the subscription holder’s Wi-Fi network. This condition allowed Netflix to block access to users who did not reside with the account holder… and thus push “free travelers” towards a subscription of their own.
In France and the United States, where these measures were added, obviously by mistake, to the service’s FAQ, for the moment the previous rules apply again: namely that the subscription holder can simply approve the use of his account for people living outside your home. However, it remains to be seen for how long.
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