After Netflix, It’s Disney’s Turn to Crack Down on Password Sharing

Following rival Netflix’s footsteps, Disney is looking into curbing password sharing among its subscribers as the streaming giant explores more ways to drive revenue generation.

“[W]e are actively exploring ways to address account sharing and the best options for paying subscribers to share their accounts with friends and family,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call last Aug. 9.

Iger, who returned to his role as CEO in November 2022, added that the company will start to “update our subscriber agreements with additional terms on our sharing policies” and announce strategies to drive monetization by 2024. This is the clearest indication so far of Disney’s intent to crack down on password sharing after a similar move by Netflix, which began purging account sharing within the same household this year.

While he did not disclose any numbers, Iger said Disney has the technical capability to monitor password sharing among its users and noted that those cases are “significant.”

Asked about the timeline of the crackdown, he said: “[In calendar [20]24, we’re going to get at this issue. And so, while it is likely you’ll see some impact in calendar [20]24, it’s possible that we won’t be complete or the work will not be completed within the calendar year. But we certainly have established this as a real priority and we actually think that there’s an opportunity here to help us grow our business.”