Heena Sharma Blog

The US-based Netflix has started testing longer subscription plans in the country, as it looks to woo new users in India where online video consumption has seen massive growth in the past few years. According to sources, Netflix has started testing multiple months subscription plans (three, six and 12 months) that will be offered at a discounted price. However, this will be available only to some new users, and they may see different options, they added. The sources said the intent of the pilot is to see whether subscribers will be open to paying for several months, or a year in advance. Earlier this year, Netflix had piloted and then launched a mobile phone-only plan in the Indian market -- a first for the company globally. The new long-term plans being piloted are also India-first. When contacted, a Netflix spokesperson said, "We believe that our members may value the flexibility that comes from being able to pay for a few months at once. As always, this is a ...

Content creators have criticised new Terms of Service from Google-owned YouTube that gives the company power to terminate account access for users if it deems the account is "no longer commercially viable". The video sharing platform started sending out the emails to users last week to notify about the upcoming changes to its terms of service to come into effect from December 10. "YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account's access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable," the new YouTube terms of service read. "We will notify you with the reason for termination or suspension by YouTube," it added. The move hasn't gone well with content creators. The new terms of service have also left users baffled. "Y'all, tell @YouTube this isn't okay. This affects everybody, including you're favorite content cr...

Google-owned video sharing platform YouTube has announced that it will no longer recommend videos that "come close to" violating its community guidelines, such as conspiracy or medically inaccurate videos. The video sharing platform will no longer recommend videos "claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11", NBC News reported on Monday. The original blog post from YouTube, published on January 25, said videos the site recommends, usually after a user has viewed one, would no longer lead to similar videos and instead would "pull in recommendations from a wider set of topics". YouTube said in the post that the action is meant to "reduce the spread of content that comes close to - but doesn't quite cross the line of - violating" its community policies. The change will not affect the videos' availability. And if users have subscribed to a channel that, for instance, produces c...