Yahoo Begins Redistributing Email Addresses & Usernames

In June, I wrote an article about how domain registrars can deal with Yahoo’s decision to recycle email addresses. This decision could prove to be problematic for domain owners whose email addresses that are connected to their domain names are redistributed to other people.

This afternoon, I received an email from Yahoo informing me that I was given an email address I request. The email from Yahoo said, “Your wish list pick [redacted] is all yours and ready to claim. You have until 9/7/13 11:59:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time to claim it.” I chose an email address that will work well for me, and I am unwilling to share it in order to cut down on spam emails.

Domain registrants and domain registrars should be on notice about Yahoo’s email recycling now that it has started. I haven’t seen if any of the suggestions I made have been implemented by registrars, but my gut says they haven’t.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the domain owner to ensure that their Whois contact information is up to date and accurate. If your email address was given away by Yahoo, now would be a very good time to make sure you update your Whois records.

Additionally, if you are approached by someone selling a domain name and something doesn’t seem right, you need to make sure you do your due diligence and perhaps use the phone to confirm ownership.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

5 COMMENTS

  1. From Yahoo site –
    “Create your Watch List
    For 1.99 USD, you can enter up to 5 Yahoo! usernames. We will notify you if they become available to claim within the next 3 years.”

    I think I had a yahoo email address 13-14 yrs ago but never really used it.

    This would be a major problem if gmail did that.

    Didn’t Hotmail do something like that a few years ago?

  2. Finally, I got one of the top 5 desired usernames that I wanted, also linked the new username with the old one after claiming it today. But, what my concern is that old username’s domain was YMAIL.COM and new username domains are of YAHOO.COM(for every yahoo wishlist request,its YAHOO.COM). Though, I was fine and was confined with YMAIL.COM, is there any chances I can claim up for the Ymail domain for my new username?? Was there really any need of changing the domain, though I haven’t requested for Yahoo.com domain but just few usernames only via Yahoo Wishlist??? Can someone tell me how will these two linked yahoo usernames will work for login and mail purpose?? Will the old username remain linked or exhaust in future as per yahoo??

  3. Hope you got a good one Elliot. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for mine, but I think if I haven’t gotten it by now, it’s not going to happen 🙁

    Hope all is well with you.

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