Summary
Streaming services looking to clamp down on freeloaders is nothing new—almost everyone has attempted it by now, with varying degrees of success. HBO Max is just the latest one to say it will go after password sharing, but I’ll have to see it to believe it.
Warner Bros. Discovery announced its plan to crack down on password sharing onHBO Max. During a recent investor call, JB Perrette, the head of streaming and gaming at Warner Bros. Discovery, detailed what the company plans to do to get users on someone else’s account to get an account for themselves. The first phase, launching in September, will involve an “aggressive” messaging campaign aimed at folks accessing the service through shared credentials. The new notifications will apparently require users to take concrete action rather than simply dismissing a voluntary pop-up. The company has reportedly been conducting tests to accurately identify which accounts are being used illegitimately outside of a primary household, so it looks like there are already some sessions that have been identified as freeloaders—there might be a lot of false positives in here.
After that, it plans to roll out technical measures to “close any remaining loopholes” by the end of this year. The company anticipates that the primary financial returns of this move will materialize later. “The real benefit will start probably in the fourth quarter,” Perrette told investors, “and then kick in in 2026.”
If you’re an HBO Max user, you’ll need to wait and see how this crackdown ends up looking.
Source:Warner Bros. DiscoveryviaEngadget
HBO Max
HBO Max is a subscription-based streaming service offering content from HBO, Warner Bros., DC, and more. In 2025, the service re-branded itself as HBO Max after having previously cut “HBO” from its name.
