AT&T’s John Stankey Says HBO Max Is Managing Password Sharing “Without Rampant Abuse”

deadline.com:

AT&T CEO John Stankey said managing passwords is a key to long-term sustainability in the streaming business and something he and his team had in mind well before HBO Max launched.

He made the comments on a call with analysts following AT&T’s latest earnings and two days after Netflix revealed that 100 million viewers use its service for free by sharing passwords.“We were thoughtful about how we built the product and that we gave customers enough flexibility but we don’t want to see rampant abuse,” Stankey said.

Products and features were built in “consistent with the user agreement that has terms and conditions of how they can and can’t use the service, and we have enforced it.”“We actively in any given month are looking at how any give users are using the product… I think that’s the right way for the industry to be managed and I think maybe some are going to adjust practices over time.”It may be the last question the chief executive ever gets about entertainment.

The first quarter was AT&T’s last with WarnerMedia, which detached from earlier this month in a merger creating the new Warner.