14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo Bill Pay, a product launched in September 1999 and which allows users to pay their bills straight from a computer with Internet connection, will be totally shut down on October 31. In an announcement published today, Yahoo said that Bill Pay will be closed in two steps: starting with September 15, 2007 the product will not allow consumers to use the functions of the service but will enable them to view all the transactions until October 31, 2007 when it will be totally shut down. All the registered accounts will be disabled on November 1, 2007 just after the service will be closed.
"The Yahoo! Bill Pay service is being discontinued. If you are already a registered user you may continue to use the service as you have in the past until September 14, 2007. No payments may be scheduled to occur after September 14, 2007 including recurring payments," the Yahoo announcement reads. "You will have access to your Bill Pay account through October 31, 2007 to review past transactions and download your transaction history. All Yahoo! Bill Pay accounts will be automatically cancelled on November 1, 2007."
As you probably know, this is not the first Yahoo service that is closed in this period. It all started with Yahoo Photos, the online video sharing service that will be shut down due to Flickr, the other similar web-based product with almost the same functions. Because Flickr is much more popular, the Sunnyvale company preferred to close Photos in order to migrate all the accounts to the other service.
Soon after that, Yahoo announced the closure of Auctions, another service that will be unavailable starting with this autumn. This time, the service will not be replaced by another product but who knows, maybe Yahoo has another alternative to this solution. Also, Yahoo said that Webjay, quite an unpopular Yahoo service, will be also shut down soon.