14 DAY TRIAL // The rapidly growing social platform of Twitter will unlock all usernames that have not been active for some time now. Due to its great popularity, it is only understandable that more and more people want a piece of its action, in other words will make an account using the username that best suits their preferences.
Also understandably, many users have come across the situation of finding out that the usernames they wanted were already taken, even though the respective accounts were no longer active. This happened because when the social platform was initially launched, there were numerous persons who rapidly settled for short catchy names, but have, since then, decided to abandon the service.
Currently, these accounts are locked and active users have no possibility to obtain any of them. According to Twitter, “An account is considered inactive if it hasn’t been logged into or updated in over 6 months. Inactive accounts may be automatically removed from Twitter. To keep your account active, be sure to log in and post an update within 6 months of your last update.”
The reality is that these accounts are not actually deleted; they are merely locked, and will not be erased unless they breach the Terms of Service, which happened quite rarely. There was a time when one would have Twitter release an inactive username if one contacted the service, or if he/she downed a trademark related to the name. However, the social networking site put an end to that first option, and only those who knew “the right people” were able to get an old, no longer used username.
According to thenextweb, a Twitter representative said that the company had in plan the release of all inactive usernames, and deleted ones, but that no specific time frame had been set. One way or the other, the social networking service will make an official move on the matter, so we'll have to wait and see when this actually happens.