Netflix is planning to roll out a test aimed at charging users who share their password with people outside their household, the company announced Wednesday.
According to Variety, Netflix’s terms of service forbid password sharing beyond households, although the practice remains common. As a result, the company has been “working on ways to enable members who share outside their household to do so easily and securely, while also paying a bit more,” Chengyi Long, director of product innovation, said in a post on Netflix’s website.
“We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like separate profiles and multiple streams in our standard and premium plans,” the post read. “While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households – impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”
The test – which will target users in Costa Rica, Chile and Peru in the coming weeks – will allow members to add subaccounts for as many as two other people outside their household for a fee: $2.99 in Costa Rica, 2,380 CLP in Chile and 7.9 PEN in Peru. Members in those countries also will be allowed to “enable people who share their account to transfer profile information either to a new account or an Extra Member sub account,” the post read.
Long added that Netflix will work to see how useful the features are in those three countries “before making changes anywhere else in the world.”