Netflix Announces Profile Transfer in Preparation for Account Sharing Clampdowns
Earlier this year, Netflix announced plans to go after the practice of account sharing, where users from different households all pay for and use a single account, which the streaming giant has never allowed in the first place. Now, the company has announced a new feature called Profile Transfer, which seems to be preparing for the inevitable clampdown on those who share accounts.
Profile Transfer is exactly what it sounds like — it allows users to transfer their profile which has their watch history, recommendations, list, settings, likes, dislikes and such, from one account to another. The narrative Netflix is pushing behind the introduction of this feature is "Families grow. Relationships end.", but it seems like just another way of saying you won't be able to share passwords once you live in different houses.
Ever since March, the platform has been testing out an add-on charge for "extra members" who share an account within different households. The test has been implemented in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, with the extra fee being cheaper than paying for a whole other subscription. Netflix has estimated that more than 100 million households are streaming through shared accounts.
Then in July, Netflix introduced an alternative where instead of charging you extra for each additional member, you'd instead be charged for additional "homes". Currently being experimented in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the additional home fees would kick in anytime you spend more than two weeks streaming on your account from a location outside your home.
As of now, Netflix has not officially announced which of the two experiments would be implemented widely. However, an internal note previously mentioned that its account sharing crackdown could go into force around the same time that its ad tier launches — the ad-supported subscription plan will be coming to select countries on 3 November.
As for Profile Transfer, the company said it will be rolling out to all users globally starting today. Users will be notified through email as soon as the feature is available for their account and if they are not interested, Profile Transfer can be turned off in the settings.
Netflix announced Profile Transfer, a feature that lets users transfer their profile data from an existing account to another.
This could possibly be in preparation for the streaming giant's eventual crackdown on account sharing.
The feature will be rolling out to all users starting from today.