LEHI, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 2023--

Netflix is launching its long-threatened password sharing crackdown in the UK. The company is writing to members who are sharing Netflix accounts and telling them that they will no longer be permitted to do so. Instead, they will be encouraged to “transfer a profile” so that users can have their own standalone accounts, or “buy an extra member”, which will let people who don’t live in a household be added for £4.99 a month. “Your Netflix account is for you and the people you live with – your household,” the email sent to problem accounts reads. The message will only be sent to those suspected of currently sharing their accounts. Netflix has not revealed exactly how it is tracking those it believes to be sharing passwords with people outside their households. But it says that it is watching for telling “account activity”, based on IP addresses and devices IDs, which might for instance indicate that an account is being used in two very different places at once. It stressed that the crackdown will not apply to those who are using their account for travelling. “You can easily watch Netflix on the go and when you travel – either on your personal devices or a TV at a hotel or holiday home,” the email reads. Users who are affected are encouraged to go to Netflix’s help centre. But the email also offers a variety of ways to deal with the problems. First, users are encouraged to “control how your account is used” by checking who is currently accessing their account. Netflix has a web page that will show what devices are currently logged into an account, and that same page can be used to kick them out of an account – after which the company encourages changing the password so that any old devices cannot log back in. If those people sharing an account are doing so with permission, however, Netflix is offering a variety of options. The transfer a profile tool will mean that users can set up a new, separate account but keep their watch history and other details, or the “buy an extra member” tool essentially lets someone outside the home have permission to share an account for less than the price of a full membership. Netflix has been gradually rolling out its password sharing crackdown across the world, beginning in Latin America and since expanding to other regions including Spain and Portugal. It has not said how it is deciding which countries are chosen to be hit by the new crackdown. The move is one of a range of changes from Netflix as it attempts to deal with slowing rates of subscriber growth that have led it to look for new ways to boost profitability. It has said that it believes some 100 million people around the world are using other people’s Netflix accounts – and that encouraging at least some of those to sign up could deal with those falling rates of signups. In its results call in April, Netflix said that early tests had shown that the crackdown was successful in encouraging people to sign up for their own accounts. While customers initially cancelled their accounts in response to the news, membership and revenue then rose after that as people started paying for their own logins, said co-chief executive Greg Peters. He also noted then that testing had revealed some problems with the crackdowns, including users complaining that they were being targeted when they were using the app on the go or while on holiday. Netflix had updated the technology underpinning the new rules in response to those complaints, he said – and it was those improvements that had given it confidence to launch the crackdown more broadly. Read More Netflix begins crackdown on password sharing in the UK and US Netflix begins sending emails to UK customers about account sharing Who is David Sacks: the controversial entrepreneur hosting DeSantis 2024 event Who is David Sacks: the controversial entrepreneur hosting DeSantis 2024 event Male characters in role-playing video games ‘speak twice as much as females’ Peloton undergoes huge rebrand

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It feels like this year, more than any other, we’re seeing a stream of science stories that continue to blow our minds. Every day is a school day online in 2023, and a host of studies, research papers and headline-making breakthroughs have completely changed our understanding of the world around us at every turn. There have been missions to the moon and findings about our planet which could turn everything we thought we knew on its head – not to mention baffling hearings on UFOs taking place in the US congress. These are the biggest science stories so far this year that have caught our attention in a big way. 'Alien corpses' unveiled in Mexico divide conspiracy theorists Christmas has come early for UFO watchers, with the alleged corpses of real-life aliens displayed for the world to see. The startling revelation came during a congress hearing in Mexico City on Tuesday, titled the Public Assembly for the Regulation of Unidentified Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (UAP). During the session, which was streamed online, Mexican ufologist Jaime Maussan presented what he claimed were two perfectly preserved “non-human entities”. Read more here. Buy now , Massive ocean discovered beneath the Earth's crust containing more water than on the surface People are only just realising that there’s a massive ocean hidden under the Earth’s crust. It turns out there’s a huge supply of water 400 miles underground stored in rock known as 'ringwoodite'. Scientists previously discovered that water is stored inside mantle rock in a sponge-like state, which isn’t a liquid, solid or a gas, but instead a fourth state. Read more here. Buy now , Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Scientists are hoping to receive a message from aliens imminently, after waiting for 30 years. But the chances are slim: the message was sent to a star that does not appear to have any planets, and there will only be an hour to hear the message. It is 40 years since Japanese astronomers Masaki Morimoto and Hisashi Hirabayashi composed a message intended to show what humans are like and how life works on Earth, and send it into the cosmos. They did so using a telescope at Stanford University and sent a message to Altair, a star 16.7 light years away that could potentially have life around it. Decades on, a team led by Shinya Narusawa at the University of Hyogo will use a large Japanese telescope to try and see if anything is sending back a reply to our message. Astronomers believe that it is conceivable a reply would come around now, given the distance to the star and the time that has elapsed. They will listen for messages coming from the star on 22 August. That date was chosen because of its significance in Japan’s Tanabata star festival, which symbolically celebrates the meeting of two deities Orihime and Hikoboshi, the latter of which is represented by Altair. Narusawa is hopeful that aliens are out there somewhere and that the message could have really been sent towards alien life around the distant star. “A large number of exoplanets have been detected since the 1990s,” he told Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun. “Altair may have a planet whose environment can sustain life.” The original message was sent on 15 August, 1983, as part of a collaboration with a Japanese weekly comic anthology. But the attempt to contact aliens never seemed entirely serious, and so any scientists involved are unlikely to be disappointed. In 2008, when the email was unearthed, Hirabayashi admitted that the pair had been drunk when they came up with the idea of sending the message, according to Gizmodo at the time. “I believe in aliens, but they are very difficult to find,” he said then. He also noted that he had received an array of messages from schoolchildren about the message, which had made sending it worth it. Read More Exact number of people needed for a Mars colony found – and it’s less than you think Strange hidden ‘structures’ hundreds of metres deep discovered on dark side of moon Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into moon in failed mission