Yahoo announced Wednesday that it would free all inactive email accounts to release the user names to active or new users.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been busy revamping the company since her arrival in July last year. She doesn't plan to rest until the company reaches the heights of success. In the latest move, Yahoo plans to reset all inactive email accounts so the usernames could be released for active or new users, said Jay Rossiter, Yahoo's senior vice president for platforms, in a post on Tumblr, which Yahoo recently acquired for $1.1 billion.
All usernames that have not been used in the last year will be deleted by Yahoo and active and new users can claim their choice of email addresses starting mid-July.
Once users claim their choice of username, they will not know until mid-August if they have their choice of ID or they get an alternative. Rossiter describes this latest move as "next big push" in the company's efforts to upgrade its services.
"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," Rossiter wrote in the company's blog post. "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."
However, if users are not willing to give up their current ID but haven't used it in the last year, all they need to do is log in to their Yahoo account before July 15.
Since Mayer, a longtime Google executive, has taken over as the CEO of Yahoo last year, the company has undergone several upgrades. Besides making the headlines for purchasing the trendy blogging service Tumbler, Mayer acquired several mobile start-ups for the company's new mobile-first program. Several changes were also made to the Yahoo email service, home page and Flickr under Mayer's supervision.
Although the company said that it would be releasing a substantial number of IDs, but it remains unclear whether the data from the deleted accounts will be saved or if existing users can link their old account with their new ones if they choose to migrate.
