Yahoo took a short break from buying up companies recently to make a simple policy change regarding user IDs. Specifically, the company announced that it will free up inactive user IDs associated with accounts that have gone unused for 12 months or longer.

This move actually relates to Yahoo's recent batch of acquisitions as it frees up a number of "short and memorable IDs" for new users, according to TechTree.

This is a fair move, as many Yahoo Mail users have moved on from the service, which first launched in 1997, and so there are likely many inactive e-mail addresses sitting unused out of Yahoo's 281 million users. Still, users who want to hold onto their Yahoo account for whatever reason can do so up until July 15, after which point all inactive user IDs will be fair game.

Yahoo's most notable acquisition over the last few months is probably that of Tumblr. The popular blogging service was acquired for $1.1 billion in May, and brings with it a new batch of youthful users — about 117 million.

However, not all acquisitions have led to new Yahoo users. For example, the company acquired Rondee earlier in June. Rondee is an enterprise conferencing service, or rather, it was as the company's closure was announced shortly after the acquisition. Rondee's employees are to be absorbed into Yahoo's Small Business team.

Either way, users signing up for new Yahoo IDs after July 15 will find a number of short, relevant IDs available for use and will be able to select from among them. Apparently, though, these new users will have to wait until August to find out which of their chosen IDs have actually been assigned to them. These user IDs can then be used to gain access to Yahoo's various services, including weather, news and sports coverage.