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Ahead of a password sharing crackdown, Netflix is making it possible for people to transfer their profile details between accounts.
The future of your Netflix password-sharing situation may not be your first thought after a break-up. But if things do come to that, the streaming giant is rolling out a new profile transfer feature that will make sure the leaving party does not lose any data.
Profile transfer is a new feature that lets users who are no longer going to avail of the service through the same account to transfer their profile details – including personalised recommendations, viewing history, lists and saved games – to a new paid account.
The feature, which started rolling out globally yesterday (17 October), comes just months after Netflix announced it will crack down on password-sharing between multiple households after a record subscriber loss in its latest quarter.
This followed the company’s first-quarter loss of around 200,000 subscribers, which was the first time the streaming giant lost subscribers in more than a decade.
Netflix estimated that its service is being shared to more than 100m homes that are not directly paying for the service, making it “harder to grow membership in many markets”.
The new profile transfer tool is likely part of a broader attempt to monetise sharing.
It is in the early stages of a paid sharing plan, which involves asking subscribers to pay extra to add a second home to their account. This is currently being trialled in several countries in Latin America.
“People move. Families grow. Relationships end. But throughout these life changes, your Netflix experience should stay the same,” Tim Kosztin, product manager at Netflix, wrote in an announcement on the company’s website yesterday.
“No matter what’s going on, let your Netflix profile be a constant in a life full of changes so you can sit back, relax and continue watching right from where you left off.”
Netflix is also launching its cheaper ad-supported subscription option in 12 countries in November, which will cost $6.99 a month with an average of four to five minutes of ads per hour.
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