Netflix television colossus streaming doubled by enforcing its rule against sharing passwords with people living elsewhere, according to U.S. media reports last Friday .
Some Netflix users who were apparently logging into other people’s accounts turned to Twitter to post news of a crackdown along with posts of a message telling them they had to be subscribers to monitor the service.
Netflix was including an offer to try the service for free for 30 days, according to a copy posted on Twitter.
“Oh no, Netflix doing the cleaning?” the Twitter user wrote in the post.
Netflix offers confirmation of who is trying to log into your account by sending a code via text message or email to the sponsor to confirm that the user is staying with them.
“This test is designed to help ensure that people who use Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” a Netflix spokeswoman said in a statement to the media. USA including The Streamable, which broke the news.
It was not certain that the test of the account user would turn into a crack on password sharing across the service. Nearly a third of subscribers to TV streaming services such as Netflix share their passwords with people who don’t live with them, according to a survey last year by talking to the company Magid.
The practice has long suffered from California-based Netflix, which has said that “guardrails” are in place to prevent serious abuse in password sharing.
People who are stuck at home due to the pandemic have turned to the internet for entertainment from streaming television to online video playback. By the end of last year, Netflix consolidated its leading position in video sharing by surpassing 200 million paid subscribers worldwide for the first time.
(Related: Netflix will offer at least 70 new Star-Studded movies in 2021)