Netflix is launching tools in more and more countries to prevent the sharing of a Netflix account outside of the primary household. The company launched password sharing restrictions in the United States, Germany and several other countries recently and plans to expand these to all regions it is available in.
Netflix argues that about 100 million households use the streaming service without paying for it. To put this into perspective: Netflix has about 233 million subscribers.
Amazon's social media team published a tweet as a response to Netflix's launch of anti-password sharing functionality in Germany, in which the tech giant seemingly endorsed the sharing of passwords for watching Amazon Prime Video.
Amazon was applauded for this, but has deleted the tweet since then. The tweet, fired off from the official Prime Video DE account, simply stated "Wisst Ihr Bescheid", which translates to "you know".
It had an image attached, which showed the Amazon Prime Video profile selection screen. Five profiles were shown, which formed the sentence "Alle Personen Mit Meinem Password", which translates to "All people with my password".
Amazon did not publish a statement regarding the deletion of the tweet on Twitter. German publisher Heise received a statement from Amazon's press office, in which the company stated that account sharing was prohibited in the terms of service.
The full German text of the statement: "Ich stelle klar: Prime-Kunden sind laut Amazon AGB für die 'Sicherstellung der Vertraulichkeit des Kontos und Passworts' verantwortlich. Ein Teilen des Kontos und Passworts mit Dritten verstößt hiergegen."
The English translation: "I clarify: Prime customers are responsible for 'ensuring the confidentiality of the account and password' according to Amazon's T&Cs. Sharing the account and password with third parties violates this."
All major video streaming services prohibit the sharing of passwords and other means of access with third-parties. Netflix is the first major streaming service to block access to the service if its algorithms detect use in different households.
The company expects that subscriber counts drop initially but expects them to rise significantly after an initial period.
Netflix added several options to its service recently that help customers end password sharing. The streaming service's two largest plans support adding non-households slots for a fee. Other options include moving profiles to new accounts, so that current account sharers may keep their viewing profiles in new accounts, and the introduction of a cheaper, but ad-powered, plan.
It is still unclear how the experiment will turn out for Netflix. If Netflix is right, in that subscriber counts will increase in the long term, it is likely that other streaming services will start to implement similar restrictions.
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