You can’t use your friend’s Netflix account anymore; Netflix cracks down on password sharing in India

In May 2023 had unveiled its plans to restrict password sharing which in the U.S.A, Brazil, Canada and other major hubs had caused the streaming service giant to witness a 100% increase in subscriptions. It has now shifted its focus onto another major market, India. 

The way it hopes to achieve this is by restricting the activity of an account to a household. How it defines a household is that devices share the internet connection with the main Netflix account. Accounts within the household can however use the Netflix across multiple locations. Netflix makes use of IP address, device ID and account activity to determine if the account belongs to the same household. 

Netflix users can determine whom to add as part of the household by confirming the validity of the device through their email. In the U.S an additional leeway of adding an extra account was introduced for users for an additional monthly fee of 8 dollars. There is no clarity for the Indian equivalent of this feature. Others doubts surround how Netflix will identify IP addresses in case users are using the VPN feature. Netflix did not initiate action against password until it registered the first instance of loss in subscriptions last year.