For months now, users have been dreading the day when Netflix finally starts cracking down on those who share their accounts with people outside their households. For some countries, that day has finally come with the streamer officially rolling out its Extra Member feature, ending the practice of sharing your password with others.

Extra Member has been trialled by Netflix in Latin countries since last March and starting today, the measure is launching in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain. This means that when the service detects that someone outside your home is regularly using your account, it will require those users to pay a fee to be an extra member of the account to keep using it.

Subscribers in the countries that we have listed earlier will be required to set up a primary location to ensure those who live in the same household can access the account. The company didn’t clarify how the strict rules will be enforced, but it did tell CBS News that accounts won’t be automatically billed if a second user logs on from another location.

Earlier this month, the streaming giant posted details regarding new password restrictions on its US help centre that required users to log into their account using their home Wi-Fi at least once a month although Netflix then decided to pull out the information and claimed that it was published by mistake. While the rules for the US and other countries have not been finalised yet, Netflix stated to TechCrunch that those living in countries with paid sharing already activated will in fact be required to authenticate their primary location every 31 days.

netflix paid sharing password sharing extra member — Image: Netflix

The leaked restrictions also said that those wanting to use their account while travelling will need to request a temporary code, but it seems the official rollout is backing down from that. Instead, Netflix says users are free to watch from their accounts while they travel, but did not indicate if there is any time limit.

Meanwhile, subscribers can easily manage who can access their account in the settings. Those affected who want to get their own subscription instead of being an extra member can transfer their existing profile into a new account using Profile Transfer.

Not all plans allow you to purchase an extra member sub-account, with it only being offered to those subscribed to the Standard and Premium tiers, with a limit of one and two extra members respectively. Netflix has not mentioned when it will launch this in other countries or how much it will cost but for reference, it charges an extra CAD$7.99 (~RM25) a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 (~RM22) in New Zealand, EUR3.99 (~RM18) in Portugal, and EUR5.99 (~RM28) in Spain.

(Source: Netflix)