Starting November 1, Disney Plus will begin restricting password sharing. In Canada.
The company announced the change in an email sent to Canadian subscribers. Disney hasn’t provided many details about how it plans to enforce this policy; Their email simply says that “we are implementing restrictions on your ability to share your account or login credentials outside of your home.” The announcement reads more like a strong finger gesture than anything else: “You can’t share your subscription outside your home,” reads the company’s updated Help Center.
A new “account sharing” section in the Canadian Subscriber Agreement It also notes that the company may “analyze your account usage,” and that failure to comply could result in account limits or termination.
The announcement comes more than a month after Disney’s third-quarter earnings conference call, where CEO Bob Iger said the company was “actively exploring” ways to address shared accounts. Iger said a “significant” number of people currently share passwords on Disney services and added that Disney has the “technical ability” to monitor logins.
Disney Plus is just the latest streaming service to try to address password sharing. Netflix has been testing these types of restrictions for over a year in several countries and began cracking down in the US in May 2023. Netflix accounts are restricted based on the user’s IP address; Subscribers, depending on the plan they select, have the option to add additional members to their accounts for an additional fee. The company said on its second-quarter earnings call that its policy has driven more subscribers to the service.
But hey, if it’s any consolation: Canadian users now have access to the cheapest tier with advertising. This next turn in the streaming wars is going to be costly.
