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Netflix Says Strict New Password Sharing Rules Were Posted in Error (appleinsider.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the change-of-heart dept.
New Netflix rules that would have enforced a limitation on users' sharing passwords are reportedly a mistake and don't apply in the US -- for now. From a report: Netflix has long been planning to cut down on password sharing, or letting friends share one paid account. The company appeared to go further, however, with the inclusion in its help pages of a new set of rules.

Broadly, anyone at a subscriber's physical address could continue using the service. But the paying subscriber would have to confirm every 31 days that a user away from their residence -- such as at college -- was part of the household. According to The Streamable, Netflix says it was all a mistake -- for the United States. "For a brief time yesterday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries," a Netflix spokesperson told the publication. "We have since updated it."
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Netflix Says Strict New Password Sharing Rules Were Posted in Error More

Netflix Says Strict New Password Sharing Rules Were Posted in Error

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  • error (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hjf ( 703092 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @02:08PM (#63262957) Homepage

    The error was that they were posted before schedule. They'll become effective worldwide eventually.

    • and what about people that have an tv box with just ethernet net or an PC will they need to use WIFI to auth in?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unami ( 1042872 )
        What about people who run Netflix through a VPN?

        • What about anyone who breaks the rules? VPNs aren't allowed. Never have been. Netflix has been playing whack-a-mole with them, so don't think just because this password sharing thing isn't being applied in the USA that you won't lose your VPN possibly tomorrow.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by higuita ( 129722 )

            no only that, netflix isn't whack-a-mole because they want, they MUST do that, to avoid being used by copyright holders and each country right owners for not doing enough. If Star wars transmission rights were sold to company X in country Y, netflix can't show any star wars content in that country without paying company X... by not actively controlling VPN, they are open they flank to a major lawsuit. But if they keep blocking IPs and track VPN usage, even if sued, they can claim they are trying to solve th

          • Netflix has *** absolutely *** no fucking say about if you use or not a VPN; What they can do, and only do, is to react against some meta information such as your IP address, which can be hidden behind proper VPN setup, such OpenVPN and the like.

            No one is breaking any rules, because netflix isn't making any rules that are laws. It is just a corporation, and nobody give a flying fuck about their opinion. If they are not happy, let them try to find you, and ban you, end of story.

            For all the rest of the n00bs,

      • No, because despite common Slashdot anti-wisdom Netflix actually know how networks work, and a brief help page designed for the common moron is not the same as the technical file written by engineers on how to implement the system.

        • Inevitably though some legitimate use case will be blocked, and that grievance will be amplified x1000 by the press and social media (largely the same thing), the underlying reason being that people are mad about the block doing exactly what it is designed to do. Having something taken away is pretty infuriating, even if not having it in the first place wouldn't have been so bad.

        • Ever heard of port knocking ? SSH Tunnel ? etc....

          Stop believing into "that" religion, it ain't a way to describe thing that you can explain, such as the knowledge of having actual fun with these "engineers".

          Hacking has been a hobby, for lot of people, and will never cease to be.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by KlomDark ( 6370 )

        LOL WUT?

    • Well yeah. That's how trials work. You do them in your smaller markets first.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suutar ( 1860506 )

      It sounds like they're starting in a test market. The rules may change before going worldwide.

  • So it was a trial balloon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by H3lldr0p ( 40304 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @02:11PM (#63262965) Homepage

    People rightly expressed their discontent and Netflix probably saw a decline in membership because of it.

    Now they're walking it back for their biggest market. Maybe they'll think twice before biting the hand which feeds them next time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Maybe they'll think twice before biting the hand which feeds them next time.

      Unlikely. Clearly Netflix has greedy stupid management at this time. That will kill them. It may now just take a bit longer.

      • I don't know if it's greed... Lots of companies posted heavy losses over the last year. Inflation is real. Retail prices have gone up. We hear a lot about a recession looming ahead. When this happens, most individuals/families simply tighten their belt, drop some luxuries, try to save some money any way they can. Either major corporations are unwilling to do this (by for instance: cutting their exec's pay a little), or they have already done it so much, that they have to find other ways to supplement their

    • Everyone who did cancel already, knows it's going to happen. So you can ride out the inevitable, but otherwise it's just a warning sign. It's just out of touch management, nothing new.

  • I just checked (Score:3)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @02:12PM (#63262969)

    I just checked the terms and conditions for using torrents to obtain your video entertainment... no such restrictions. Sounds like a clear winner to me :-)

    I *am* a Netflix subscriber but as things get tougher it will be the first of my monthly costs to be ditched.

    • Same, but not because of this. Most of this carrying on about muh netflix password sharing is entitled shitheads who just want free stuff. And a lot of it is the Very Online who just think everyone will pirate instead, when 97% of netflix's customers aren't really technically capable of doing so.

      The stuff I've seen doesn't look like that much of a problem, people whining over not being able to share the password around willy nilly because they'll have to do with occasional 2FA requests.

      • You're right, but probably only because anyone who became tired of Netflix's bullshit already sailed off for the high seas when a price increase or loss of rights to a show was the final straw that broke the camel's back. The remaining subscribers are probably able to be pushed around a bit more before they finally say "fuck it" and just look for stuff to watch on the other major streaming platforms.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        I'm not sure why my sharing an account with my sister and parents makes me "an entitled shithead" while someone else sharing with their spouse and kids makes them a legitimate user.

        Netflix would do well to continue charging by the simultaneous stream and butt out about the rest. They seem desperate enough not to do that, and they'll lose subscribers over it. The MBAs are supposedly trained to figure out the optimum.

        • You can share your subscription with your sister and parents if you want. Netflix won't stop you. As long as they live in the same house, it's perfectly acceptable per the terms of use.
          if they don't live in the same house...what did you expect? That you could share one subscription between yourself and 30,000 members of your extended family and friends living in different households around the world? Name one other subscription service that works that way.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Any software license for starters. You buy four seats, you get four seats. There's nothing "entitled" about that.

            Netflix can try and enforce any terms they like. Their customer base is young though, and they have limited patience with this 50's era nuclear family household stuff. They'll lose a lot of subscribers if they get too aggressive.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by br1984 ( 9617674 )
      I just checked the conditions for my Usenet tools and Plex Media Server and apps and the weather report there is clear blue skies with all the stuff you want with no stupid laggy streaming interfaces that take 10 seconds to fwd/reverse and no fng IRM (Inconvenient Rights Management). I pay for all the services but still prefer getting things in alternate ways because the web, Apple TV, and mobile "apps" for most of these services are garbage web wrappers developed by javascript copy paste monkeys that ignor
  • Rules withdrawn for now and will be reposted later when the noise dies down, they hope. Consider telling your friendly Netflix online chat or phone support person how you feel, not about them, they're just doing their job, but about the fluckery FluckFlix is about to unleash on all the customers whose business and loyalty they treasure so much. Also tell them how busy their job is going to get when millions of travellers and other users flood them with much love as they find out they've been locked out of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, I called it a suicide-plan. Seems I was right on the money. Not that I expect "management" at Netflix is smart enough to see where they went wrong and learn from it. They will just delay that suicide a bit longer. Next time they will not get outrage and probably will thing everything is fine. But they will get people not extending their subscriptions instead and a lot of them.

  • We'll see about that, (Score:4, Informative)

    by unami ( 1042872 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @02:18PM (#63263007)
    it's not that unlikely that they'll also try that in other countries. I share my password with 3 other people from my family who don't live with me, because to none of us it has enough value for paying 18 euros every month for a 4k subscription. I'm just not going to pay that much for a single household. I'd even think very hard about it for 7-8 euros a month, and I'm probably the one of us four who's most likely to spend money on a streaming service. So, good luck with cracking down on passwort sharing, netflix - I doubt it's worth it and people probably won't come back that fast, even if they lower those restrictions (or the price) again.

    • it's not that unlikely that they'll also try that in other countries.

      Not sure what you mean by this. "not that unlikely" is what I would say about a process that Netflix has openly said they are trialling in some smaller countries first. If the trial is a success there's a 100% chance it will be expanded. Not "not that unlikely", but rather "damn certain".

    • It'll work for them. They'll have to cut costs and offer better plans. Instead of $25 or whatever they charge a month for 4 screens, they'll charge, say, $19 for 2 screens or some shit and still come out ahead. They just have to find the balance.

  • Nextflix Regrets (Score:5, Funny)

    by Your Anus ( 308149 ) on Friday February 03, 2023 @02:21PM (#63263019) Journal
    Giving you warning about an upcoming policy change.
  • I wonder why it wouldn't work to run a private VPN host at your "regular household" to log into while you are on the road.

  • We have two residences. Multiple persons in the family.

    Why couldn't family member #1 watch Netflix at house #2 while family member #2 watches it at house #1?

    And no, we don't watch on our tiny cell phones, and we are not bringing back every device at house #1 every month. So that plan wouldn't work for us anyways.

    We pay for 4 concurrent streams. Just let us use them as we want from where we want.

    • I don't know, two residences would equal two accounts, shouldn't it?

      They should just go to having a single user plan and family plan. Oh wait at least for phones the single user plan gets ripped off by comparison. Every time.

      • They should just go to having a single user plan and family plan.

        Single device, n device, single household, multi household, per device? Why not all of the above, priced accordingly, prices subject to change? Sell people options.

        • I'd prefer unlimited devices and households but only per for hour watched. Would be a better intensive to provide quality content that people will want to watch.

      • I don't know, two residences would equal two accounts, shouldn't it?

        Why? Accounts are not based on location.
        Why should I use the same account when I go to the hotel, or I am in the subway, or whatever, but get a second account for when I go to my second residence?

        They should just go to having a single user plan and family plan

        That's already the case. They have 1, 2 and 4 streams plans. I pay for 4 streams, and not all 4 of them need to be on the same IP address.

  • When they finally DO implement this in the US, they will lose more paying customers than there currently are leeches.

    When they become a pain in the ass, I'm dropping them.

    • ^This.

      Netflix needs to understand their long time customers and who exactly helped them become what they are today. The moment I run into licensing issues is the moment I drop Netflix for good. I will tolerate zero bullshit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nkwe ( 604125 )

      When they finally DO implement this in the US, they will lose more paying customers than there currently are leeches.

      When they become a pain in the ass, I'm dropping them.

      Certainly changing / enforcing sharing rules will annoy some people such as yourself to the point where out of principle or spite, decide to drop the service. Some people who are not currently customers but are the recipient of sharing (the leeches you refer to) will become customers when they lose free (or lower "split cost" access).

      I suspect that Netflix has an army of accountants and other folks that have run the numbers to determine how many customers (revenue) they will gain and lose by changing sharin

  • Burned a lot of karma it in the previous story for saying it in a snarky manner, but Netflix already got rid of everything worth watching. Anyone who is still sticking around after all the good stuff went to the other streaming services, and the prices still went up, is clearly a glutton for punishment.

    If the massive loss of content wasn't enough to make someone click that "cancel" button, a nag because they're watching on their phone or laptop while away from home isn't going motivate them to cancel eithe

  • Currently, I pay for a steaming service and share it with 2 others that pay for different streaming services which they share with me. We all get all 3 services for the price of 1.

    If those services start killing sharing, I suspect many will follow my plan. That will be to have each of those services about 4 month per year. I'll watch whatever is hot or interesting on each service, then cancel and move to the next every few months. It won't really bother me much but I can see it being a pain in those company

    • That will be to have each of those services about 4 month per year. I'll watch whatever is hot or interesting on each service, then cancel and move to the next every few months.

      This is already what I do. The content I want to watch is scattered across too many streaming services, and each alone doesn't have enough worthwhile content to justify carrying it full time*. It is slightly annoying, but I'm rotating services every 3-4 months.

      Right now the ones in the "not currently subscribed" category are Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max. Those will rotate with Netflix and Peacock and a few others.

      The only streaming services I keep all the time now are Amazon (I'm a Prime member - I wouldn't p

  • No surprise. They basically announced they would be fucking their customers. Most of these customers think that without password-sharing, what netflix has to offer is not worth the money. Hence restricting password-sharing means they would drive the price up to a level where they will lose a rather large part of their customers.

    That they now claim this was an "error" is just the usual and obvious corporate lying.

  • This is the second high profile licensing oopsie in 30 days after the HASBRO/CoTC OGL.

    A cynic would see the shareholders demand for MOAR bumping up against the reality that customers can and will leave a platform when abused.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • So I travel for biz and routinely use my Netflix to watch on the road. If I'm gone 32d at a stretch (which admittedly is rare), no more.

    Yet the 250 students in a single dorm? Yeah, fine with sharing forever.

  • Well it was a good run. It's time to terminate my Netflix Subscription. I think if 30% of the Netflix Subscribers cancel the issue of not sharing account with family and friends will be rectified.

  • Great, now I have the joy of teaching family members how to setup VPN.

    In my case I hope their router/modem supports being a vpn server. How well does something like a virtual server running openwrt work for cleint serer stuff? and wireguard?

    Or maybe I can use wireguard on a spare pi zero or two....

    • > Great, now I have the joy of teaching family members how to setup VPN. bullshit, mate. Tell them to buy their own subscription

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