Hulu Reveals Plans to Stop Password-Sharing Just Like Disney+, Netflix
Hulu is now cracking down on accounts that share passwords between households.
Hulu is the latest in a long line of streamers dedicating time and resources to a password-sharing crackdown. Wednesday, the Disney-owned streamer shared an e-mail to subscribers saying they may have to pay extra if someone outside their immediate household uses the service.
"Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household," the email read in part.. "'Household' means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein."
Furthermore, the email adds that Hulu workers may shut access off to accounts that are found to be in violation of the new rules.
"We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement," the email adds. "If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have violated this Agreement, we may limit or terminate access to the Service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this Agreement."
Hulu follows in line with both Netflix and Disney+ as major streamers starting to crackdown on the practice of sharing passwords between friends and family. Earlier this month, Netflix applauded its effort on password sharing, saying the change in rules has substantially improved the company's bottom line.
"We believe we've successfully addressed account sharing, ensuring that when people enjoy Netflix they pay for the service too," a Netflix shareholder letter released earlier this month read. "Features like Transfer Profile and Extra Member were much requested, and many millions of our members are now taking advantage of them."
They continued, "At this stage, paid sharing is our normal course of business — creating a much bigger base from which we can grow and enabling us to more effectively penetrate the near term addressable market of ~500M connected TV households (excluding China and Russia), which should increase over time as broadband penetration rises."
Last summer, Netflix said it had experience a 25-percent increase in subscriber growth after implementing its password sharing crackdown.
