Yahoo! to block access to services with Facebook or Google IDs

Yahoo! will begin requiring a Yahoo! login to access its products soon. Starting with NCAA college basketball service ‘Yahoo! Sports Tourney Pick’Em‘, users will no longer be able to use Facebook or Google IDs to sign in. Eventually, the Facebook and Google sign-in buttons will disappear from all Yahoo! sites.

According to Reuters, Yahoo! says this change “will allow us to offer the best personalized experience to everyone.” However, it is a reversal of their recent strategy of adding Facebook and Google logins to its services. From Yahoo! Mail to Finance and Flickr, you’ll soon need a Yahoo! account to access them.

Yahoo! is the fourth biggest site in the US (and the world), with YouTube, Google and Facebook ahead of it. It has a long history of providing several core services, such as Web search, a comprehensive Web directory, and its popular mail product. It’s the only one of the four that currently lets you sign in to its services with an ID from another company. While the process has already started, Yahoo! gave no indication of how fast the change will be implemented.