Devices No Longer In Your Possession May Still Access Your Accounts

Reset or Deauthorize Any Streaming Accounts Before Selling or Returning Network TVs or Streaming Media Players

Okay, maybe the rest of the world knows about this, but I didn’t until a few days ago. And at least a couple initial levels of Amazon tech support didn’t recognize the source of the problem either…

To be more specific, the unauthorized streaming discussed here refers to a situation where your legitimate streaming account is being accessed and used by a party not known to you, the streaming account holder. This party can view your watchlist and your list of recently viewed movies, and you can view theirs. It’s an unwillingly shared account where you are the only one paying the subscription fee. The freeloading party almost certainly knows that they are tapped into someone else’s account; however it is possible that you may be unaware that anything is wrong if you don’t access your viewing history.

We subscribe to both Amazon Prime and Netflix streaming accounts, both of which have a recently watched category that displays any past movie or TV program that was played long enough to register. Netflix gets used the most in our house and has this list on its main movie page (at least on my Roku XS – other devices may differ), so it is visible every time you browse the movie lists.… Read the rest