Netflix will begin cracking down on people who are sharing their Netflix accounts in New Zealand later this month.

About a million New Zealanders are understood to have Netflix accounts.

But hundreds of thousands more are believed to be watching the service for free by logging on to the accounts of friends and families from a different location than the account holder, in contravention of Netflix' rules.

Currently, Netflix sends emails every time people access Netflix using a new device from a different location 'reminding” them that it only allows people in their household to share an account.

But it will soon start asking customers to confirm their 'primary location” when they next log on to Netflix and then block access to the account from different locations unless it appears those customers are simply accessing Netflix while travelling, or from a holiday rental.

Netflix will send emails to its New Zealand customers over the next three days outlining its policy, which it has previously implemented in Peru, Costa Rica, and Chile.

It also announced a similar crackdown on Thursday in Canada, Spain and Portugal.

Netflix US-based product innovation director Chengyi Long says the company has always made it easy for people who lived together to share their Netflix accounts through account features such as individual user profiles and by allowing multiple streams.

'While these have been hugely popular, they've also created confusion about when and how you can share Netflix.”

Netflix has about 230 million accounts worldwide.

But Chengyi says that, globally, more than 100 million households were sharing accounts 'impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films”.

Setting up somewhere as a primary location, will simply involve pressing a confirmation button when a message appears on screen.

Chengyi says customers will still be able to watch Netflix on their personal devices or on a hotel TV, for example, when travelling.

But it is understood the 'primary location” feature would prevent access if an account was being logged into from a different location repeatedly, or for an extended period of time.

In Peru, Costa Rica, and Chile, Netflix's policy has been to require that devices used to watch Netflix log on from the customer's designated primary location every 31 days.

Netflix says customers who have second homes such as baches or who travelled frequently will be able to continuing watching at both if they opened the Netflix app on their mobile while connected to the Wi-Fi network at both their primary location and second location at least once a month.

Customers will be able to change their primary location themselves if they moved to a different address, Netflix confirms.

-Tom Puller-Strecker/Stuff.