Business

Yahoo announces all content on Yahoo Groups will be permanently removed

All public groups will be made private or restricted.

Written by Aimee Chanthadavong, Contributor Oct. 16, 2019 at 3:57 p.m. PT

Yahoo has announced it will be removing all content from its free long-running online discussion boards, Yahoo Groups.

While Yahoo said in a statement that the Yahoo Groups site will continue to exist, users will no longer be able to upload any new content to the site as of October 21, and from December 14, all previously posted content on the site will be permanently removed.

The content that will be affected include files, polls, links, photos, folders, database, calendar, attachments, conversations, email updates, message digest, and message history.

"You'll have until that date to save anything you've uploaded," the announcement post read.

Users will also be able to download their own data from the site's privacy dashboard, Yahoo said.

The company added that all public groups will be made private or restricted, which will provide administrators with limited access and allow them to manage various group settings and administration tools.

Any new group members will need to request an invite or be invited by an administrator to join a private or restricted group, Yahoo said.

Yahoo encouraged users who still wish to share information and files with their groups to do so via email.

"You'll still be able to communicate with your groups via email and search for private groups on the site," the company said.

Yahoo did not cite the reason behind its decision to wind back down its Yahoo Groups site.

Yahoo's core business was purchased by Verizon, a deal that was worth $4.5 billion and completed in 2017.

Earlier this year, Verizon said goodbye to Tumblr, which it sold to Automattic, the parent company of WordPress. Verizon had acquired Tumblr as part of the Yahoo deal. Prior to that, Yahoo had purchased Tumblr in 2013 in a $1.1 billion deal.