Netflix may block devices that connect outside of the main house

Netflix continues its crusade against shared accounts with people who don’t live in the same house as the owner. The streaming platform has been testing in different territories for several months to find a way to prevent us from passing our password to family or friends who don’t live with usor at least monetize those “secondary homes” with a premium for non-primary locations or users who connect regularly.

The Streamable includes a more extreme system that was already mentioned in the platform’s help page, but has been eliminated. It would basically consist of blocking access to devices that connect outside the main residence. The curious thing about this system is that even the main user is obliged to take a series of precautions to keep his account active without problems: he must watch some Netflix contents at least once every 31 days in the main location so that the platform know that that is the main location of the house. A device that has connected to your primary home Wi-Fi network at least once every 31 days and played content will be considered a trusted device. The company will use the IP and identification numbers of the devices to determine whether or not they are being used within the primary residence.

And if we are traveling?

Any device (computer, television, tablet, etc.) that connects from somewhere other than the main home and has not been used for 31 days to watch anything from the main location will be blocked and will only allow connection to your own account. So what if we are the account holder, are away from home and want to watch Netflix? The platform will allow you to request a temporary code to access the service outside your main home (which must be entered before the fifteen minutes have elapsed) and access will be valid for seven consecutive days. If our trip is for a longer period of time, we will need to contact Netflix customer service to unlock our devices.

This new idea from the company seems to replace that possible subscription surcharge (which they had already experienced in Latin American countries) by introducing technological barriers that end up frustrating users to the point that they decide to open their own account. But it seems risky enough to put so many obstacles even for those who live in the same house and use various devices, some to watch series or movies, for example, in their daily commute or if they spend time at the home of other relatives and friends. Netflix hasn’t specified when it will roll out these restrictions on a massive level, but There are rumors that the end of March would be the deadline to start the fight against shared accounts.