Senate Clears Netflix Facebook Sharing Bill

Netflix wants to make it easier for subscribers in the United States to share exactly what they're watching with their friends on Facebook. The problem with making the ability to share what you're watching with your Facebook friends easy is a law put in place in 1988 called the Video Privacy Protection Act doesn't allow so-called "frictionless sharing" of movies that you're watching.

Netflix allows users outside the United States to share what they're watching with their Facebook friends already. Users in the US are one step closer to the "frictionless sharing" of what they're watching on Netflix. The announcement came this week that the U.S. Senate has passed a bill that would give frictionless sharing the go-ahead.

The bill isn't only designed to allow the sharing of the movies you're watching on Facebook. The bill would allow for the sharing of what movies you are watching automatically on any other online services well. The same legislation was cleared by the House earlier this week meaning that to become law president Obama has to sign it or veto the bill.

Netflix and Facebook expect President Obama to sign the bill and the law. Once the bill becomes law Netflix intends to introduce social features for US users in 2013. Presumably, Facebook will be designing a feature that will automatically post the movies you're watching on Facebook, if you want to share that information.

[via AllthingsD]