Email Controversy
Offers of help have been pouring in for a Michigan man who is trying to persuade online giant Yahoo! to allow him access to the e-mail account of his son, a Marine killed in Iraq. From lawyers to computer-code crackers, people across the nation have come forward wanting to help the family of 20-year-old Justin M. Ellsworth, who was killed last month during a foot patrol in Iraq. 'Oh, my God. It's been incredible,' said John Ellsworth, Justin's father. 'It's an overwhelming response. ... Things are really moving. I'm very encouraged by it all, but I still have my reservations.' Yahoo! is standing by its policy of protecting the privacy of its e-mail subscribers, spokeswoman Karen Mahon said.This is an interesting dilemma. Should an email account and the electronic documents it contains be considered part of an estate, to be transferred to the heirs of a person after death or should it remain private? Typically I believe traditional letters would become the property of the heirs but one could argue, as I guess Yahoo! is doing, that email accounts do not automatically transfer.
posted by Dave Justus | 12/22/2004 10:10:00 AM
6 Comments:
Of course there is also the point that do you really want your parents reading your email? Eeek!
I think that in this increasingly digital age, this is going to become more of a problem. I know that if I were to die today, there are three sites that would die as well, as my brain is the only place the passwords are kept.
Passwords and accounts need to be willed. One should leave specific instructions on how to handle all of ones affairs - and now days that includes Blogs, Websites, email accounts, Pay Pal accounts, Ebay - the list goes on and on.
I side with Yahoo! on this one - unless there are specific instructions in the Will of the person that gives his or her heirs the rights to access the accounts. There could be information in the email that perhaps he did not want people to read. We do not know. With out more specific instructions from the deceased, I feel that we should not impinge upon his privacy.
Good points. I wonder if we won't see a next of kin feature built into certain sites in the future that would allow the release of the current password to whomever you designate upon receipt of a birth certificate.
Of course complicating this process is that many sites, and Yahoo! might well be one of them, don't necessarily know for sure who it is they have an account for.
I agree. A co-worker of mine and I have been discussing this since lunch. He keeps a little black book of passwords where his wife can find it in case of, well best to not think about that. I think that would be the best manner to take care of this. It's not Yahoo's responsiblity to determine who it's account holders are, and provide access upon heirs request, rather it's the responsibity of the (now) dead guy to have planned ahead for this. Treat it like stocks or anything else that you own - pass it on if you want. I would say that Yahoo is taking the high road on this one, and I support them 100%.
Just as a thought, what if this guy had evidence that he was carrying on an affair, or worse. Would the family really want or need to see that? Perhaps he knew what he was doing when he did not leave the password behind.
We cannot second guess him, but rather need to look at what we are left with. If he had really wanted to make sure someone could access the account, then he would have left instructions behind. He did not. Yahoo should not give access to the account. Doing so would be a breach of their contract, and would throw out any expectation of privacy that we had with them.
I fully understand the pain that the family is going through. However, that pain should not authorize a ransacking of this man's life with out his permission.
< / rant >
:)
The black book thing is a good idea but I can see it being a pain if you change your password frequently.
Another interesting aspect of this story is the prominence of the fact that he was a Marine who was killed in Iraq.
While I honor him for his service and sacrifice, I don't see what that has to do with this issue. Is it any different if he was a junky who overdosed?
better yet if you blog from an alais you can pass on your site to others after you die.
wow that is lone way to outlive yourself
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