FOUNTAIN CITY, Wisconsin - Ed Callahan, a Wisconsin resident alleges that his attempts to get an e-mail account with Yahoo proved futile as his name has the word a-l-l-a-h, as in Allah. Callahan said that he attempted to create an account after his mother, who has the same last name was unable to create one on Yahoo Mail.
He said that he tried different usernames and found that using other names was all right as long as he did not use Allah, which is Arabic for God. "The war on terror is becoming a war on Muslims," Callahan alleged. Elinor Mills reporting for CNET News.com says that after the news of the ban was made public by The Daily Hampshire Gazette on Friday, it was picked up all over the Web and created a furor.
Attempting to avoid a backlash, Yahoo said on Wednesday that it was lifting the ban and issued a statement clarifying the reasons behind its initial actions, "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.
"'Allah' was one word being used for these purposes, with instances tied to defamatory language. We took steps to help protect our users by prohibiting use of the term in Yahoo usernames. We recently re-evaluated the term 'Allah,' and users can now register for IDs with this word because it is no longer a significant target for abuse."
After the policy change, Ed Callahan was able to register an account with his last name included, "I went ahead for fun and registered 'allahs_in_callahan' in Yahoo," he said. It is reported that the ban has come under the scanner since June 2005, when a user called "Kallahar" created a web page saying that Yahoo was indulging in discrimination. This web site (which includes several profanities) says that the ban came into effect only after 2000.
