Yahoo will permanently axe the public chat rooms feature of its Tahoo Messenger software.

The Yahoo! Messenger Public Chat Rooms will close down on December 14, 2012, the company said.

Yahoo said the feature was closing because it was not "adding enough value" for users.

Along with the chat room, Yahoo will also discontinue several other features.

Pingbox and Windows Live Messenger interoperability are all scheduled to be removed on 14 December, and some other features will disappear at the end of January, Yahoo added.

"Thank you to everyone who have used these features. We plan to keep innovating and building great Yahoo products that will delight our users in the years to come," Yahoo said.