When Netflix posted rules against account sharing currently in effect in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru on its Americas Help Center page by mistake, the rules pissed off a lot of people and were widely seen as a bad move.
Netflix quickly retracted the error, but a few days later announced new measures aimed at limiting password sharing in Canada, as well as several other countries, though not yet in the United States. Among other guidelines, these new rules require users to log into their accounts on their home Wi-Fi every 31 days to ensure that their devices are recognized by the service as belonging to the primary account holder.
Owners of Tesla brand electric vehicles were left wondering if this applies to them as well. Since the service is often built into the interfaces of electric vehicles, the news caused some concern. Would they have to connect to the service with their car every month? What if they have to park too far from their router and can’t access their home Wi-Fi?
According to a post from Drive Tesla Canada, Tesla owners in Canada won’t have to worry about these issues. A Netflix spokesperson confirmed to the website that the new rules would not apply to Teslas and that owners could continue to use the service as normal in their cars without having to log in every month.
Netflix online support agents had warned Tesla users that they might need to buy an additional membership to their account for $7.99 a month. This is a new feature in countries that saw the new rules come into effect at the beginning of February, which allows users to add a friend or relative to their account for about half the price of Netflix’s ad-free Standard plan.
However, the streaming giant has confirmed that Tesla owners will not need to purchase an additional membership to continue using Netflix in their cars. The company did not release additional details about whether it will introduce new rules for Tesla users in the future or whether they will continue to be exempt from efforts to stop password sharing.
The confusion from Tesla drivers highlights one of the reasons Netflix is slow to roll out its new account-sharing guidelines around the world. The rules have yet to take effect in the United States, and the company may well be tweaking them behind the scenes in response to the confusion, negative feedback and increased cancellation rates it has seen since their introduction in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.
However, the company is unlikely to change course. Netflix has estimated that over 100 million users share passwords worldwide, and the company is determined to see sharers start paying. Executives confirmed that the anti-password sharing rules will roll out widely in the first quarter of 2023, so US users should expect to see them soon.