Yahoo! Gets Into Allah-t Of Trouble

Yahoo! has found itself in the midst of a new controversy after blocking the use of the word "allah" in email account registrant screen names. The uproar sparked from an unlikely complainant, Ed Callahan, whose name includes the banned letter sequence. Yahoo! has since reversed its policy. The Massachusetts resident discovered the ban after trying to set up a Yahoo! email account for his mother, Lindy, who has the same last name. On Callahan's website: "I tried kallahar2', then kallahar3' then kallahar385753984753.' All of them came back as unavailable.' I did some more research, and came up with the following interesting results. All of these were tested in the "test4allah408754873" format to ensure they weren't simply conflicting with an existing user." Kallahar found that "allah" along some other words, like "binladen," "osama," and "raghead," were also banned from use at Yahoo!. Stemming from an update post 2000, there was a curious mix of allowed words that include: god; messiah; jesus; jehova; yahweh; quran; koran; mohammad; islam; usama; nazi; satan; jihad; terrorist; pedophilepriest88; killmuslimsandarabs1; and jewskilledjesus999. After Calahan's story hit national news, Yahoo! was quick to make adjustments to re-allow the use of the word "allah." With here.") Drag this to your Bookmarks. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") Yahoo My Web