Netflix begins to hinder account sharing even in Italy

Lorenzo Delli


30/07/2021 ore 17:03 – Updated on 07/30/2021 at 17:09

“This account is used in multiple households”: thus reads the screen that has welcomed a user on Netflix, entering with the data of a shared account. “To continue watching, create your account”, the screen continues, with the button immediately below that invites you to subscribe.

Then immediately below, however, you still have access to the procedure for two-factor login, verifying access via email or through SMS. Netflix, however, begins to recognize accesses precisely from “Households” different from the first.

In fact, for some time now Netflix has been starting to take the first steps towards hindering account sharing between users not belonging to the same nucleus. We had already seen similar stakes abroad, but still not in Italy. To be honest, in the terms of use of the account, it has always been specified that sharing is allowed within the home. Let’s look at the offending image, which is nothing more than the Italian version of the one we saw in March.

Just in March, Netflix had confirmed the “Announcements”, stating that the functionality in question was intended to strengthen user safety. It is true that with a possible intensification of these controls, sharing the account could become a nuisance, with a user called to help others with checks by email and SMS at the most disparate moments.

In the specific case of the image shown, it is a account (italiano obviously) shared between users located in different regions of Italy. Even just by logging in on devices other than those from which you usually use then, you will receive the classic email “A new device is using your account” in which, between the notes, the following sentence is clearly reported:

Remember that we only allow people in your household to use your account.

However, from the latest estimates of 2020, it seemed that around 31% of subscribers shared the account with other users, leading to a possible loss of $ 9 billion (in 2019). As a result, it’s also common for Netflix to actually take the first steps towards making that practice somehow less appealing.

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