According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hulu is planning to start cracking down on their streaming platform’s password and account sharing. The Disney-owned streaming platform is following the same move as Disney+, which has stated it will address the issue of password sharing in 2024. In an email, they notified subscribers with an update to the terms and agreements forbidding sharing passwords and accounts from a single home. The new agreement fated on January 25th will take effect on March 12th.
The new change to the agreement states, “Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household. ‘Household’ means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein.”
The agreement continues, “We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement. 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.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney CEO Bog Iger on an earnings call last August, stated that both Disney+ and Hulu would start cracking down on password sharing. This statement came after competitor Netflix had reported two consecutive quarters with a huge increase in subscribers since cracking down on users sharing passwords. This success showed other streaming platforms that the process works, as Disney+ and Hulu will also be starting to implement it moving forward.
Iger said on the call, “We’re actively exploring ways to address account sharing and the best options for paying subscribers to share their accounts with friends and family. we will roll out tactics to drive monetization sometime in 2024.”
More streaming services resemble traditional cable, limiting password sharing and incorporating more ads.