HBO Max following in Netflix’s footsteps with password sharing crackdown

Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming boss says crackdown will be ‘aggressive’

HBO Max have revealed they are set to crack down on password sharing, following similar moves by other streaming services such as Netflix.

The sharing of passwords among different users has generally been tolerated up to now.

However, Deadline reports that in a recent earnings call, JB Perrette, the CEO and President of Global Streaming and Interactive for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) told investors that messaging to users will get more “aggressive.”

The streaming service is believed to want to close the loophole by the end of the year with the aim of improving financial returns by 2026.

Perrette said that WBD had instigated months of testing to determine “who’s a legitimate user [and] who may not be a legitimate user.” Next, he said the company plans to “turn on the more aggressive language around what needs to happen” so that “we are putting the net in the right place, so to speak.”

JB Perrette, CEO and President of Global Streaming and Interactive for Warner Bros. Discovery, speaking in 2022 (Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)

Perrette continued by saying that “the message language right now has been a fairly soft, cancel-able message,” adding that it will “start to get more fixed and such that people have to take action, as opposed to right now, sort of having to be a voluntary process.”

He told investors that “the real benefit will start probably in the fourth quarter and then kick in in 2026.”

WBD will no doubt have been keeping a close eye on Netflix, who earlier this year announced revenue of $11 billion for the second quarter of 2025, exceeding Wall Street projections.

Those record-breaking earnings equated to $3.1 billion in net profit.

On social media, several users praised the company’s business strategy with one writing: “The password sharing crackdown is clearly working. Remember when everyone thought it would backfire? Netflix played the long game perfectly.”

However, others complained that despite Netflix’s increasing revenue the quality of their product is declining. One user opined: “More [people] sitting at home doing nothing than ever. Most Netflix shows recently have been garbage.”

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Another added: “People will watch anything.”

In 2024, Disney+ announced their own plans to crack down on password sharing.

Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, pointed to the success of Netflix in forcing people to buy their own subscriptions to watch.

Speaking about launching the crackdown as a way of boosting revenue for the platform that April, Iger said Disney+ would be “launching our first real foray into password sharing” in June, adding the move would help “turn this business into a business that we feel really good about.”