BENGALURU – Netflix on Wednesday extended its crackdown on password sharing for accounts on its streaming platform to users in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.

The video-streaming giant is testing its new set-up on customers outside the United States before launching it there. A trial of a new password plan was launched in four countries in South America in 2022.

“Over the past year, we have been exploring different approaches to address this issue in Latin America, and we are now ready to roll them out more broadly in the coming months, starting today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain,” the company said in a blog post.

Users will be asked to set a “primary location” for their Netflix accounts and will be allowed two “sub accounts” for users who do not live in that household.

For more than that, Netflix will charge a monthly fee per extra user of C$7.99 (S$7.90) in Canada, NZ$7.99 (S$6.70) in New Zealand, €3.99 (S$5.70) in Portugal and €5.99 in Spain, it said.

Netflix has estimated that 100 million people around the world use a shared account.

The company lost subscribers in the first half of 2022 amid stiff competition from rivals, prompting it to look more seriously into password sharing and launching an ad-supported plan.

The changes announced on Wednesday will start immediately, along with a new “Manage Access and Devices” page that will allow users to specify who has access to their accounts.

If an account has more than the maximum number of profiles allowed, the user will be able to transfer surplus profiles to a new account and save the additional fee. The transferred profiles will maintain all of their personalised recommendations and viewing history from the original account.

Netflix said it plans to revisit and refine the new account management page based on user feedback. REUTERS