Yahoo Allows Email Access to Family (of dead US Marine)

[leftchick]

http://wwmt.com/engine.pl?station=wwmt&id=15887&template=breakout_state.html

WIXOM, MI (AP)- E-mail provider Yahoo has pledged to give the Michigan family of a Marine killed in Iraq full access to their son's e-mail account.

That ends a court battle that began after his parents sought messages he wrote before his death.

An Oakland County judge signed an order yesterday directing Yahoo to provide the contents of the e-mail account used by Lance Corporal Justin Ellsworth.

The 20-year-old from Wixom was killed November 13th while inspecting a bomb in Al Anbar province.



John Ellsworth is shown by his computer in Wixom, Mich., in this Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004, file photo, with a screen saver showing his son Marine Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, who died in Iraq Nov. 13, 2004. John Ellsworth's, Justin's father, attempts to get access to Justin's Yahoo! e-mail account drew national attention to the plight of a parent seeking to reclaim the property of his son, pitting e-mail privacy rights against the rights of parents or any loved ones who might want the final writings of a deceased loved one. Under court order on Wednesday, April 20, 2005, Yahoo! turned over the contents of Justin's account. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

[trotsky]

1. Hmmm

I really don't know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I can see the family's point. But where do you draw the line? Immediate family? Grandparents/grandchildren? In-laws? Distant cousins? How about your creditors who think you were hiding a bunch of money and believe your e-mails will contain a clue as to where it is?

[HereSince1628]

3. I am guessing here, but I imagine the argument was

that the emails represent personal effects in the estate of the deceased--rather like a box of old letters (which of course they aren't exactly like since email is password protected.) Under that argument I would think that access would be made through the next of kin/executor/administrator of the deceased estate and creditors would have no right to direct access.

[trotsky]

4. Oh yeah, and that I can totally understand.

I just wonder what some other court could make of this precedent down the road.

[DrDebug]

5. I feel a bit of the same

I think that the direct family has a right to access it, but that's probably where you should draw the line. Either way it's a precedent, so you'll never know what it'll eventually lead to, so maybe it would have been bother not to give it away.

[FuzzyDicePHL]

2. woohoo

Now they'll get to take advantage of all those great offers for penis enlargement, low-rate mortgages and barely-legal teen sluts!!

[malmapus]

6. hehe yeah my thoughts too since its a Yahoo email address

I think thats all mine gets now-a-days anyway

[David__77]

7. Well, I'm not using Yahoo any more.

If someone wants someone else to have access, they would have given the password -- period. I have my partner's e-mail password, for instance.