Yahoo announced on Wednesday that on July 15, the company will be offering “short, sweet, and memorable” Yahoo IDs up for grabs. It is doing this by freeing up Yahoo IDs like emil@yahoo.com that have been inactive for at least 12 months so users like thisismythrowawayaccount@yahoo.com can finally get a useful email address. The plan is to reset the IDs in mid-July and let Yahoo users “have a shot at scoring” the Yahoo ID they want. Then, in mid-August (we assume August 15, but no exact date was given), Yahoo users who staked a claim on certain IDs will be told “which one they got.” That implies you’ll be able to attempt to claim multiple IDs, but you’ll only be able to switch to one. Spammers and other criminals will likely want to take advantage of this little contest, and Yahoo will presumably be working hard to stop them.
