Yahoo! is banning the use of allah in email names – even if the letters are included within another name.

This was uncovered by Reg reader Ed Callahan whose
mother Linda Callahan was trying to sign up for a Verizon email
address. She could not get it to accept her surname.

Enquiries to Verizon revealed that a partnership with Yahoo! was to
blame. Yahoo! will not accept any identies which include the letters
"allah".

Nor will Yahoo! accept yahoo, osama or binladen. But it will accept
god, messiah, jesus, jehova, buddah, satan and both priest and
pedophile.

Ed Callahan told us: "On one level this is just silliness. But we
have a war on terrorism and it’s migrating to be a war on Muslims –
this just shows the confusion there is between the two and how
pervasive this is."

The Callahans are still waiting to hear back from Yahoo!

A spokesman for Yahoo! UK said: "This sounds like a glitch. But we
will get back to Ed and Lindy Callahan with a full answer as soon as
possible."

By John Oates

List of words they do allow. (Warning: Offensive content)