The crackdown on password sharing by Netflix (NFLX) has been expanded to include Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain. Following the adoption of similar regulations in Latin America last year, users in these nations will now have to pay to grant access to their accounts to those with whom they do not reside.
Under the new rules, subscribers to Netflix’s Standard or Premium plans will be able to pay for up to two people outside of their household to use their account. The cost of adding a new person will be $7.99 Canadian dollars ($5.96), $7.99 New Zealand dollars ($5.09), and €3.99 ($4.30) and €5.99 ($6.45) in Portugal and Spain respectively.
Netflix started introducing the change last year in Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. It plans to roll out the new rules “more broadly” sometime before March, it said in a letter to shareholders last month.
The streaming giant, which suffered heavy subscriber losses last year, said in a blog post-Wednesday that password sharing hurt its revenues and therefore limited its ability to invest in new content.
It estimates that more than 100 million households worldwide share an account.
