Max said it would happen, but now we know when, exactly: the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned HBO streaming service is about to start its password sharing crackdown next week.
This is according to CEO JB Perrette (via TheWrap), who announced the news at a conference hosted by Wells Fargo on Tuesday.
“We will kick off literally in about a week, some very early, gentle messaging,” he told press.
Not only will said messaging be “gentle,” it will also start happening only to people whom the company deems to be in the “higher tier of usage.”
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Perrette also admitted that figuring out who’s sharing their passwords, and who’s only using their account outside their home on a vacation, isn’t easy, which is why the company will start gradually until it can figure out. But when it does, the filters will get “tighter and tighter.”
That phase can apparently be expected in the second half of 2025 and into 2026.
We don’t mind the careful approach, especially when it comes to weeding out actual password sharing from fair usage (I’m looking at you Netflix, and your constant prompts to log in again).
To get your mind off all this unpleasant password sharing crackdown business, Perretti also spilled the beans on launch dates for some upcoming HBO shows. For example, the third season of The White Lotus is about to kick off in February; The Last of Us Season 2 will premiere in the spring of 2025, and the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (a Game of Thrones prequel) will launch in 2025. Finally, Euphoria Season 3 is coming a little later than anticipated: sometime in 2026.
