Netflix still rules the living room and for years we’ve got used to sharing our password with family and friends so they can tune in without paying for an account of their own. Despite this, Netflix has still grown into a hugely successful business with ever-growing subscription numbers, but recently the company decided to crackdown on password sharing, building in tools to the service to stop it happening.
One group of Netflix subscribers who have been able to get around this new rule are those in the UK who get Netflix for free as part of their Sky subscription. Some Sky account holders have Netflix bundled for free into their broadband or TV packages, saving them a monthly fee.
But now Sky is alerting these account holders to the fact Netflix is stopping people sharing passwords to people outside of their household. It means Sky customers who get Netflix as part of their deal will have to confirm their TVs are part of what’s now known as their ‘Netflix Household”.
You can then only use that Netflix account on the same home internet connection, and will no longer work in other locations. You can use your mobile devices to watch Netflix as long as those devices have accessed Netflix on your home Wi-Fi in the previous 30 days.
The new way to allow other people in other places to use your Netflix subscription is to add an extra member slot to your account. This comes with an additional fee of £4.99 per member per month for both Standard and Premium Netflix tiers, but can’t be added to the low cost Standard with ads plan. Extra members associated with your account must also first set up their own Netflix account and activate it in the same country as the host’s account.
But the kicker if you’re a Sky Netflix bundle customer is that the extra members feature is not available to you, and there’s no way to share your account with people using it outside your household. So, while regular subscribers can add extra users to their account for a fiver each and share their passwords, those who get Netflix through Sky can no longer share.
