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A Breakup Doesn't Have to Mean Also Losing Your Netflix Profile

The company announced a new system to transfer account profiles to a new membership, but steered clear of mentioning anything about curtailing password sharing.

Netflix shows users how to transfer profiles among accounts for when there are “times of change.”
Gif: Netflix

You can now easily transfer your Netflix profile to another Netflix account, but don’t you dare even hint you’re planning to do the same with your password.

The streaming company announced on Monday they were introducing new features that let users migrate profiles between different membership accounts. The company said this would let users keep their profiles “even in times of change.”

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Though that “change” isn’t what you may be initially thinking about. It effectively lets you move profiles between accounts if “people move” or “relationships end.” So you will be able to get your Netflix account off your ex for example, which includes profile name, video recommendations, maturity level, viewing history, and game saves “when they start their own membership.”

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Of course, what would keep them from just using their family’s old Netflix account when they move out? Well that may be the other kind of “change” that Netflix is very hesitant to explicitly touch on.

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In an email to Gizmodo announcing the new feature, the company mentioned “We’ve been testing Profile Transfer in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru since March and have learned that it’s a really valuable feature for members who are starting new accounts during times of change.” Netflix had also been testing a system that would hit users with an additional surcharge for those same countries if it detected users sharing a password outside the house and household where the account was registered. A spokesperson had previously told Gizmodo that the fee was around $2, although later announcements bumped that up to $2.99.

Although reports from this past year showed that users in those markets were not too happy with the changes. In July, Netflix expanded their password sharing restrictions to more countries in Latin America including Argentina, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Honduras. Basic subscribers could only add one extra home, while Standard and Premium could add an extra two or three, respectively.

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Rest of World reported in September that account holders in Argentina were perhaps the most upset with these changes, especially as a country with more than 4.5 million Netflix subscribers. They took to Twitter to voice their antagonism with the #ChauNetflix trending on Twitter. Some users wrote that Netflix was doing a bad job detecting if multiple devices were connected to one account, erroneously charging them extra. Gizmodo could not independently verify any of those reports, but these tweets do show some growing antagonism to the streaming platform’s plans.

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Since May of this year, when Netflix execs said they would put a stop to easy account sharing, the company has not made any public indication they would start charging U.S. or European countries for handing out their streaming password.

Last week, Netflix finally gave us the full details of its ad-supported subscription tier called “Basic with Ads.” Pricing will be $6.99 per month in the U.S. and will be coming Nov. 3, but since the company has been extremely hush-hush about its wider plans to incorporate password sharing, Netflix has made no mention of whether users will be able to share their cheap-tier accounts with family and friends living miles away.

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Netflix is all set to release its latest quarterly earnings report Tuesday evening, so there is a chance this latest addition to the platform could be a harbinger of some other major announcement made to shareholders. In the streaming company’s second quarterly report for 2022 execs said they lost more than a million less subscribers than they originally expected to, though the company has not strayed from its stated path of adding ads and making people pay for sharing their password. On the other hand, critics of how Netflix has run its business have told Gizmodo the real issue is its business model and its overreliance on debt.