Users report that Netflix , even if they have their televisions in the same house.
It detects different locations for their devices, causing their accounts to be blocked or demanding payment for the extra member.
Spain has begun to suffer the consequences of the expansion of measures to avoid shared accounts of the Netflix service : location errors.
Different users in the country, one of the four to which these new terms and conditions have been expanded apart from Peru, Chile and Costa Rica , point out that Netflix does not locate their devices or does so at very long distances, thus blocking their accounts or forcing them to to pay more for ‘extra member’
Mistakes on Netflix
People have been sharing on social networks like Twitter that the location service by IP address is locating them in the wrong way.
Como @NetflixES acierte con las localizaciones como ha hecho con la mia, estamos apañados. Alicante, @NetflixES, Alicante. pic.twitter.com/dcWzXAwkTP
— Fernando Maciá 🧑🏻💻📚 (@fernandomacia) February 9, 2023
2 televisores… Misma vivienda… Según @NetflixES uno está en Logroño y el otro en Sabadelll… Vivo en Bilbao… 🤭 Pero bueno, eso hoy… Porque hace unos días una estaba en Alcalá de Henares y la otra en Barbera del Valles…
— A.D.A. (@aloasie7e) February 16, 2023
Parece que a @NetflixES no se le da muy bien calcular la ubicación… Me salís @josecontic, @guarroman y más publicaciones seguidas con el mismo caso, no sé si atreverme a probar yo 🙈🙈🙈 pic.twitter.com/8FtClJEzEf
— Juan Carlos Flórez (@jzerolf) February 9, 2023
El nuevo sistema de @NetflixES funciona se maravilla, estando en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria me dice que estoy cerca de Gijón Asturias.
Mis 10 al geolocalizador pic.twitter.com/86T5XMBxTh
— 🧶Gabrigurumi🧶 (@Gavricarglez) February 16, 2023
The curious thing is that the same users report not having changed their location or having logged in in different cities to give rise to this problem.
Why does this happen?
According to El Confidencial, determining the location only with the IP can be unreliable.
“The only one who knows the relationship between IP and client address and its location is the communication operator that assigns you the IP,” he explains to Antoni Martínez Ballester, associate professor of Computer Science Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). “Therefore, Telefónica, Orange or Vodafone can consult that. But Netflix cannot consult it .”
In order for companies like Netflix to get the location of users in this way, they use databases from private companies, but not all of them are accurate.
“An operator can communicate that all its addresses are in Barcelona, despite providing services in remote rural areas. When they consult the information, the generic response will be that they are in Barcelona,” he adds.
While, in Peru, this costs 8 soles per extra member, in Spain it is 6 euros per month per person.