YouTube has started enforcing its rules that require its family plan subscribers to live in the same household, following in the footsteps of Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX).
What Happened: YouTube Premium family plan subscribers will now have to be from the same household. YouTube is sending out emails to users, asking them to confirm their address.
According to user reports on Reddit, YouTube is asking for address confirmations from existing YouTube Premium subscribers on the family plan. According to the emails sent by YouTube, the streaming giant wants to confirm whether the users still meet the "eligibility requirements".
While YouTube's terms of service require users on a family plan to live in the same household, this is the first reported instance of the Alphabet Inc.-owned (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) streaming service enforcing this rule.
Here's what YouTube's support page says:
"To be eligible to share a YouTube family membership, each family member must live at the same residential address as the family manager. Every 30 days, an electronic check-in will confirm this requirement."
Why It Matters: If YouTube's same household requirement sounds familiar, that is because earlier this year, Netflix started enforcing this rule, too. This is after years of promoting Netflix password sharing.
Earlier in July, Netflix started cracking down on password sharing, forcing other users to either transfer their watch history to their own accounts or pay an extra fee to continue using the shared account.
YouTube Premium prices have also been hiked, once again following in the footsteps of Netflix and Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE: DIS) Disney+, among others.