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View Full Version : Netflix Thinking About Ways To Make Own Punishment Actually Punishment


Suhit Gupta
02-20-2006, 10:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://techdirt.com/articles/20060217/0944212_F.shtml' target='_blank'>http://techdirt.com/articles/20060217/0944212_F.shtml</a><br /><br /></div><i>"After plenty of people, including the FTC and a judge on the case, noticed that Netflix's class action settlement for delivering movies slower than promised appeared to be more of a promotion to get people to upgrade their accounts than a real punishment, Netflix has now said it will reconsider its side of the agreement, and see about not automatically enrolling everyone who agrees to the settlement in a higher, more costly, service plan after their one month free upgrade is completed. It seems like this is the type of thing they should have thought about before all of this -- and it's not clear why so much "thinking" needs to go into it now."</i><br /><br />So this looks to be a different issue than the throttling issue that we spoke about last week. Apparently now Netflix is now contemplating exactly how to extend or cancel someone's service once the 30-day trial has ended. Umm, has Netflix officially gone evil? I actually sent them an email about their throttling issue asking why I get movies, that I added to my queue well before the movie even came out onto DVD, so incredibly late (i.e. I am so far down on the priority list), they clearly and openly told me that they prioritize people that ask for fewer movies per month. Ugh, seriously contemplating BlockBuster now.