Yahoo Will Free Up Inactive IDs, Possibly Including Yours

delete Yahoo

If you have an old inactive Yahoo ID you haven’t used in a while, you may loose it…soon. The Internet giant plans to “free up” those IDs for the benefit of new or existing users who want them, if the old users don’t sign in to Yahoo before July 15, 2013.

It looks like Yahoo is doing this primarily to make room for potential new users of its services coming over from Tumblr. As we’ve reported, Yahoo announced plans to acquire the popular social blogging network for $1.1 billion last month.

The company said on its official Tumblr blog Wednesday that it will allow new users to stake their claims on inactive Yahoo IDs. Here’s what Yahoo Senior Vice President of Platforms Jay Rossiter wrote about the changes in a post called “yourname@yahoo.com Can Be Yours!”:

If you’re like me, you want a Yahoo! ID that’s short, sweet, and memorable like albert@yahoo.com instead of albert9330399@yahoo.com. A Yahoo! ID is not only your email address, it also gives you access to content tailored to your interests - like sports scores for your favorite teams, weather in your hometown, and news that matters to you.

Here’s how Yahoo plans to give new users a crack at the old inactive IDs. In mid-July, Rossiter said Yahoo will be “resetting” IDs inactive for 12 months or longer. At that time, Rossiter says anyone will have a chance to “score” one of these free IDs. No word yet on exactly how this will work.

They can then return to Yahoo in mid August to find out whether they got the ID of their choice. Yahoo IDs are used to access most Yahoo services including Yahoo Mail and Flickr photostreams.

If you’re like a lot of early Yahoo users, including online business owners, you probably have a Yahoo ID you haven’t used in a while, perhaps to access an old Yahoo email account or MyYahoo page you used for business purposes. If you’d like to keep that account for future use, no problem. But you’ll need to act soon.

Rossiter says existing users need only log onto any Yahoo product prior to July 15, 2013. So, if you want to keep that old Yahoo ID - take note.