Netflix to Begin Automatically Cancelling Inactive Accounts

If you haven’t logged into Netflix in a long time, you may want to check in on your subscription status. The streaming giant is now taking action to remove inactive accounts from its service. This week, Netflix announced that it would be notifying its customers that inactive accounts, which haven’t been used in a year or more, were going to be deactivated. These notifications, likely in the form of an email, will ask the holders of the inactive accounts if they’d like to continue their subscription. If the answer is no, or if there is no answer at all, the account will be removed.

This seems like a great way for Netflix to get more accurate subscriber numbers, eliminating accounts that aren’t really being used at all. However, this action won’t make that much of a different. According to Netflix product innovation director Eddy Wu, these inactive accounts only make up about half of one percent of all subscribers.

In the Netflix company blog post, which was written by Wu, this is all about keeping people from paying for something they don’t use or can’t afford. With this process, members with inactive accounts can be reminded that they’re still paying for Netflix, and are given an easy way to opt out. If anyone cancels and decides they want to sign up again within the next 10 months, all of their profile preferences and watch lists will be saved.

“You know that sinking feeling when you realize you signed up for something but haven’t used it in ages? At Netflix, the last thing we want is people paying for something they’re not using,” Wu wrote in the blog post. “So we’re asking everyone who has not watched anything on Netflix for a year since they joined to confirm they want to keep their membership. And we’ll do the same for anyone who has stopped watching for more than two years. Members will start seeing these emails or in app notifications this week. If they don’t confirm that they want to keep subscribing, we’ll automatically cancel their subscription. If anyone changes their mind later, it’s really easy to restart Netflix. These inactive accounts represent less than half of one percent of our overall member base, only a few hundred thousand, and are already factored into our financial guidance.”

If you’ve used your Netflix account at any point over the course of the last year, you won’t be hearing from the service about any sort of cancellation.