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Netflix Claims Password-Sharing Rules Won't Apply To US Yet, Were Posted By Mistake

The previously posted new policies are now only in effect in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru.

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Netflix's divisive password-sharing crackdown policies are apparently not coming to the US just yet, despite a comprehensive breakdown of rules that were posted to its member Help Center FAQ earlier this week. According to comments a spokesperson provided to The Streamable, those policies were posted by mistake.

"For a brief time, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries," the spokesperson told The Streamable. "We have since updated it."

What a spokesperson wouldn't be free to say is that perhaps the policies--which included a mandatory account check-in every 31 days, among other new rules--were posted deliberately to gauge reactions. Unsurprisingly, the sudden rollout of these rules were met with significant pushback from customers. For example, many criticized the requirement for traveling customers to request and subsequently secure a temporary code from the service, which would only grant access to an account for seven consecutive days.

What's less clear as of this writing is whether Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru will serve as a model for how these changes will be imposed in the US, or if this is all a big experiment that could perhaps still be abandoned.

Last year, Netflix began charging users $3 when someone outside their home accessed an account. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters previously told The Streamable that the company is seeking "thoughtful experimentation to let our members speak to us in terms of what set of solutions work for them."

Check out our rundown of everything coming to Netflix this month.

David Wolinsky on Google+

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