Yahoo: ‘allah,’ Not Only ‘god’ and ‘jesus,’ OK in Mail Usernames

Yahoo Mail, in a policy reversal, said Wednesday it would allow people to register usernames that contain the letter sequence “allah,” which it had banned to thwart the use of usernames to promote hate, CNET reports. “A small number of people registered for IDs using specific terms with the sole purpose of promoting hate, and then used those IDs to post content that was harmful or threatening to others, thus violating Yahoo’s Terms of Service,” the statement said.

One Linda Callahan of Ashfield, Mass., apparently set up a Gmail account after being rejected by Yahoo Mail because of the presence of “allah” in her name. “It was discriminatory. They disallowed ‘allah’ but allowed ‘jesus’ and ‘god,’” Linda’s son, Ed Callahan of Fountain City, Wis., is quoted as saying.

Linda is now boycotting Yahoo, but Ed isn’t. “I went ahead for fun and registered ‘allahs_in_callahan’ in Yahoo,” he said - and has devoted a web page to the Yahoo ban.

According to the Lacrosse Tribune, on www.edcallahan.com Ed points out that Yahoo doesn’t prevent users from using other religious words that could be used for hate-speech. He therefore suspects other motives for the ban.

“The war on terror is becoming a war on Muslims,” Callahan said. “The word terrorist now means Muslims, and it shouldn’t.”

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