Netflix may crack down on password sharing, but in a ‘consumer-friendly way’

Netflix has revealed that it’s looking at ways to curb user password sharing.

During a recent interview Netflix’s third-quarter earnings, Guggenheim Securities’ Michael Morris asked Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann about the company’s approach to password sharing.

Specifically, Morris asked how important password sharing is for Netflix to address and how the company might go about doing so without alienating its subscribers.

“We continue to monitor it,” responded Neumann. “We’re looking at the situation and we’ll [look for] those consumer-friendly ways to push on the edges of that.”

However, Neumann noted that Netflix has “no big plans to announce at this time in terms of doing something different” with how password sharing works.

Therefore, it’s unclear what changes Netflix might make to password sharing in the future.

As it stands, users can sign into Netflix on as many devices as they want, with the only limitation being how many can stream at the same time (depending on the plan). Naturally, this allows people to share their accounts with family or friends.

Given how open this is, it’s possible that Netflix would want to reduce the number of devices an account can be registered to. For example, Sony allows users to share content between PlayStation 4 systems by logging into the same account, although it limits this functionality to two consoles. Trying to do this with additional consoles could get an account flagged and blocked.

For now, though, people can continue to share their Netflix accounts with one another with peace of mind.