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Dead Marine's E-Mail Opened to Family

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

April 22, 2005, 9:38 AM

A Michigan court has ordered Yahoo to hand over the contents of a Marine's e-mail account who was killed in Iraq last November. The family of Justin Ellsworth, 20, had been fighting with Yahoo since December to gain access to the man's personal e-mail account, however the company refused to give the family Ellsworth's password.

The family later filed an injunction to prevent Yahoo from deleting the account according to its 90-day inactive account policy. Both sides expressed support for the court decision. However, Yahoo said its privacy policy will not change despite the ruling, and it will continue to honor the privacy of account holders.

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By Aires

edited Apr 26, 2005 - 6:28 AM

Whilst I'm sympathetic to the family, I have to question whether this is what the soldier would have wanted.

And it's a VERY bad precident to have set.

Score: 0

By xer0

posted Apr 23, 2005 - 2:39 PM

So does that mean if I do something illegal
they wont let the feds in my stuff?

Score: 0

By jofin

edited Apr 23, 2005 - 9:17 AM

I can of course sympathise with the family at their loss. However, I feel that had the deceased wished anyone to access his email account then he would have either let people know the password or noted it down beside his computer.
Yahoo would not have given it out to anyone else had he been alive and sadly, I feel that the same should have been true with his death.
Nobody would have known the contents before the release to his family and I hope that there is nothing in them, which would destroy his memory. It seems odd that the family raised this action at all, given that they should have been grieving his loss. May it never happen but, if someone close to me died, the last thing I would be thinking about is access to their email account.
Finally, let me echo some of the other respondents - its time to stop raising legal actions over trivia. Lets concentrate on things that matter to everybody - poverty, disease etc!!!!

Score: 0

By jrizznit

posted Apr 25, 2005 - 10:47 PM

"Lets concentrate on things that matter to everybody..."

You mean like the deaths of family members? Nah, hardly anybody has to deal with that. ;)

Score: 0

By adamdawg

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 6:34 PM

That's definately a sticky situation. I wouldn't know what to think about if it were my decision..

On one hand, I understand the parents want as much as they can have to remember their son by, but on the other hand, dead or not, privacy is privacy. I don't want ANYBODY going through my personal things when I die (I consider email to be very personal).

I guess I think the parents should have just let it go, I'm sure they have plenty of things to remember him by. Email is NOT that big of deal.

Score: 0

By ArabianNight

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 1:45 PM

At least 1 company is considering privacy rights...

Score: 0

By pjlasl

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 1:32 PM

just one more reason for another lawsuit, no wonder why we have the highest rate of lawsuits...people got nothing else to do. The only reason I see the family wanting access to his account is because there is something very important there...hopefully he wasn't dumb enough to leave that kind of information there...i just hate seeing stories about lawsuits this and that...should I sue my parents for not allowing me to have keys to their car to drive whenever I like?

Score: 0

By gawd21

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 11:15 AM

Why even have laws or rules when they don't apply to everyone. I think that the family has issues as well as the court that gave them the "right" to his email. People need to stop trying to fight stupid battles over petty unimportant things and look at how everything in our country is getting screwed up and fight to fix that not some STUPID email account that isn't going to bring him back from the dead. Yahoo had every right to delete it and should have ignored the court order! It's Yahoo's property and no one else's. They own the company and the media that the information is stored on.

Score: 0

By Maxwolf

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 11:22 AM

So you could laugh at the family members and drink their tears? Bugger off troll.

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Apr 22, 2005 - 11:32 AM

I actually agree %100 with his FIRST statement :) I have been doing legal briefs for my class on the issue of ISP's disclosing information and such, and this is an exception to the general rules, but never has this specific situation come up. They're not disclosing the emails to the public, just the family. There is no risk of violating privacy here.

Score: 0

By Scary Guy

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 11:58 AM

Even still I don't want my family reading anything on my yahoo account, at all, ever. I'm normally a pretty open guy but my personal mail I'd prefer to keep private. Not that I don't just use my yahoo acount as a spam mail anyhow but it's the principle of the matter.

Score: 0

By AaronDobbins

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 10:44 AM

I feel for both the family and Yahoo in this case, as certain consumers will likely be leary regarding their e-mail from this point on. I applaud them for giving access to the content, as the family desired. Tough spot for both parties on that one.

Score: 0

By TheRecklessWanderer

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 9:53 AM

I understand completely the bad situation Yahoo was in. If they let the family have access, then that opens the door for Police (government) to look at emails. The court order allowed Yahoo to do what it wanted to do, but couldn't. I'm glad it turned out for everybody.

Score: 0

By Kahuna

posted Apr 22, 2005 - 7:34 PM

I can see both sides. The world is changing faster than our courts can keep up.

I can understand why they wanted into the email account but I would hate to think someone can get into mine before I die.

I actually have passwords to some accounts in my "death envelope" which includes my will and PIN numbers and stuff like that. Maybe I should add in there that I do not want anything else accessed.. I don't have anything to hide but I would like to think that some things in my life are private even after I die.

Score: 0

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