Netflix has introduced a new feature that lets users see who has accessed their account, from what devices, when most recently, and from what geographical locations.
The new "Manage Access and Devices" feature, which is accessible in the "Account" section of the Netflix homepage, also allows account holders the ability to give their exes and estranged the boot.
In a company blog posting Tuesday, Netflix said the feature will come in handy during the holiday travel season.
"With the busy holiday season just around the corner, many of our members will be on the move and watching Netflix wherever they are traveling to see family and friends. Logging in to your account while at a hotel or even your friend’s house is easy and intuitive, but lots of people then forget to log out," product manager Charles Wartemberg wrote.
With Netflix set to roll out a new system that charges members for account users not living in their home, the new addition seems to be a nifty prelude.
Also read: Netflix's Password-Sharing Crackdown Is Already a Mess
Certainly, as Netflix's ragged experience while testing different sharing crackdown schemes in Latin America revealed, the implementation could prove problematic.
Next TV looked at our own "Manage Accounts and Devices" profile and pondered the nearly half-dozen devices used by our oldest spawn, the 20-year-old, 6-5 college student and gourmet pickle salesman.
And we wondered, "How is this all going to work?"
Technically, this frequent out-of-home user is a Netflix member in good standing, his recent strong affection for HBO's Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon not withstanding. His shaggy noggin sleeps three miles down the road from us, on campus at USC most nights (er, mornings), but much of the 5,000-calorie-day-diet that maintains his rail-thin Shaggy-from-Scooby-Doo frame still comes from our refrigerator. And he's home all night -- usually once a week when he says he needs "real sleep" -- often enough to put the Hisense smart TV from his childhood bedroom in the recent rotation of "Manage Access and Devices."
Will Netflix still deem the kid a freeloader and force Next TV -- still reeling from global inflation and a long-ago reneged-upon promise of a big raise from a feckless former boss -- to pay $3 a month to keep him on the account?
Indeed, there's a lot of interesting information about the big global account-sharing crackdown yet to come. ■
