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From Monday August 26, Yahoo will begin notifying those who requested a particular user ID through the company’s newly expanded and ever increasing, pool of usernames, if their request has been granted. If you missed it the first time around, earlier this summer Yahoo made an announcement that it would re-open access to unused Yahoo IDs and subsequently the email addresses associated with them. The plans were initially met with a bit of controversy surrounding the security practices of such a brave move, but Yahoo quickly addressed those concerns.
The announcement came in mid-July, when interested users could navigate to wishlist.yahoo.com to request up to five email addresses/user IDs. If the company then determined those IDs eligible for re-use, they would be awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The move was meant to start a rush for emails and user IDs which have long since been taken, such as your name, for example, without any numbers attached to it. Now, Yahoo is beginning to alert users if they were able to get their preferred user ID before others. If they did not, then Yahoo says it is also announcing a new Watchlist, which users will then be added to automatically at no charge.
This feature will alert you if your preferred username ever becomes available at some point in the future. For those people who did not request a new Yahoo ID, with the new Watchlist you can now pay $1.99 to access the service, which tracks a total of five names for three years.
The Watchlist will hold names that become available for 14 days, allowing you a chance to stake your claim. Yahoo have made some recent progress as the new weather app and the deal regarding Tumblr shows, but, I think that Yahoo is a bit optimistic if it thinks a Yahoo ID is something that is worth paying for. I sure don’t want to pay for mine, but, are you willing to pay to stalk yours?
[Image via mashable]