As per an agreement with the UK's Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) body, Microsoft has announced that it will be cancelling and no longer accepting dormant Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass subscriptions.
Set to only be the case in the UK as of the moment, this comes as the CMA has been investigating the auto-renewal process behind subscriptions on all major gaming platforms, including Sony and Nintendo systems, with Microsoft being the first and current only company to change its policies.
The new process will see Microsoft approaching people who haven't used the service in at least a year, and will inform those users about an opt-out policy. If there is continued to be zero activity for a further year, the subscription will be automatically cancelled.
On top of this, Microsoft is set to provide better information on its auto-renewal policies going forward, as well as ways to handle refunds for automatic renewals. You can see all the new improvements in a press release by the CMA.
While this is a UK-exclusive commitment for the time being, a Microsoft spokesperson did tell The Verge that "changes to inactive subscriptions will initially roll out in the UK and will be available globally soon," meaning we will likely see this policy enforced in more countries down the line.