(Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Efforts to crack down on password sharing on Disney+ will begin "in earnest" next month, Disney CEO Bob Iger said during a Q3 earnings call.
Disney has been testing account-sharing limits for almost a year. It started in Canada and expanded to other countries in June. Iger teased an expansion to the US earlier this year, and in this week's call, he reiterated that its "password sharing...kicks in, in earnest, in September."
Once it rolls out, Disney will block unauthorized users outside of the same household. It follows a similar effort from Netflix, which now charges an extra $7.99 per month per person. It would prefer people just sign up for their own account; the ad-supported Netflix is $6.99 per month.
As The Verge points out, Disney has not announced what it might charge for an extra user.
The cost of paid sharing could be a significant sticking point since Disney+ is receiving yet another price hike—along with Hulu and ESPN+—starting Oct. 17. Disney+ with ads will be $9.99 per month, the ad-free tier will be $15.99 per month, and the yearly ad-free option will increase by $20.
Iger says he's not worried about the price hikes affecting subscriber numbers. “We've had no backlash at all to the notifications that have gone out and to the work that we've already been doing,” he said.
Like Netflix, Disney is looking for a password-sharing crackdown to push people to sign up for their own accounts. "Password-sharing is just starting to roll out, [and that's] going to be helpful in terms of driving growth," Hugh Johnston, SVP and Chief Financial Officer, said on the call.
Account-sharing blocks are a work in progress; some of them make it harder to use video-streaming services while traveling, for example. It's unclear how strict Disney's efforts will be, but for now, there are ways to avoid Netflix's password crackdowns.