Netflix has announced that the company will begin testing a new ‘Add a Home’ feature to charge users an additional fee in case they are sharing passwords with others outside of their households. According to the details, this is part of Netflix’s efforts toward cracking down on password sharing, something which the streaming giant blames for its sluggish growth.
The streamer will begin testing the ‘Add a Home’ feature Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras next month. In these regions, every Netflix account will include one home where you can access Netflix on any of your devices. However, if the user wants to share his password with anyone else, they will have the option to ‘add another home’ for an additional fee.
Netflix states that users can add another home to their account by paying an extra 219 pesos in Argentina and $2.99 in the other test regions. However, there is a limit to the number of homes that can be added to an account based on the subscription tier.
According to the details, the members on ‘Netflix Basic Subscription’ can add one extra home, while members on ‘Netflix Standard Subscription’ will be able to add up to two extra homes. Meanwhile, the ‘Netflix Premium Plan’ users will be able to add up to three extra homes to their Netflix account.
Furthermore, the users in these test regions will be able to control where their account is being used and remove homes from their account setting page. The new feature also includes watching Netflix on tablet, laptop, or smartphone while you travel.
The new ‘Add a Home’ feature is different from the “Add Extra Member” feature Netflix launched in a few countries in March 2022, which allowed users to add sub accounts for up to two people they don’t live in the same household as the owner of the account.
As for how Netflix determines a user’s location, the company says that it doesn’t rely on location-based data, like GPS. Instead, it’s leveraging the same information it uses to provide its service today to its end users, including an IP address, device IDs and other information about devices signed into the Netflix account across the household.
Through this method, Netflix is able to detect when there’s persistent sharing taking place outside of a household. This isn’t the only steps being taken by Netflix to recover its losses, as the company also confirmed that it will introduce an ad-supported subscription plan.
Read more: Netflix Partners With Microsoft to Offer Cheaper Ad-Supported Subscription Plan.
