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Yahoo Groups to completely shut down December 15

Yahoo announced today that Yahoo Groups will fully shut down on December 15, 2020. If you own or are a member of a Yahoo Group, you should have received an email announcement. 

In December 2019 public online content for Yahoo Groups was removed, and Yahoo Groups became email-only. Now the email Groups will be going away as well.

Starting October 15, no new Yahoo Groups can be created, and starting December 15, you will no longer be able to send or receive emails from Groups. The site will be entirely shut down.

Any emails from Yahoo Groups you have sent or received will remain in your email account. 

See the Yahoo Groups shutdown FAQ for more details, including a feedback email address.

Why the shutdown? Verizon says: 

Yahoo Groups has seen a steady decline in usage over the last several years. Over that same period, we’ve witnessed unprecedented levels of engagement across our properties as customers seek out premium, trustworthy content. While these decisions are never easy, we must sometimes make difficult decisions regarding products that no longer fit our long-term strategy as we hone our focus on other areas of the business. 

No surprise there. 

In 2001 Yahoo! (don't forget the !) acquired eGroups.com and integrated that with its own Yahoo! Clubs to launch Yahoo! Groups. It was huge in its time, with boards covering almost any topic (including the illegal and unseemly). But it was also long neglected, and with Verizon Communication's acquisition of Yahoo in 2017, it didn't seem to have a clear place Verizon's corporate strategy. 

Other parts of Yahoo were sold off, with Flickr acquired by SmugMug in 2018, and Tumblr acquired by Automattic (WordPress's parent company) in 2019. But I imagine that what amounts to a huge database of old mailing lists wouldn't be an attractive purchase, with low usership not able to offset the privacy and content issues. 

Yahoo Group owners can download a list of group members

1. Sign in to Yahoo and access your Group's page

2. Click Management | Manage Members

3. Click Actions

4. Click Export

Yahoo suggests that you might move to Facebook GroupsGoogle Groups (which has gotten a recent makeover), or Groups.ioPaid Groups.io accounts can be integrated with outside services, and allows you to directly add members.

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