Justin Ellsworth Many for Are Uneasy With

¶ … Justin Ellsworth Many for are uneasy with the rapid pace of changing technology in today's contemporary environment. There are now issues to whether or not information sent through these technologies is safe in terms of privacy concerns. For example, there is the case of Justin Ellsworth who died serving the country at war; yet whose parents demanded access to his e-mail. Ellsworth's information should still be protected under Internet privacy laws which he himself agreed to while he was alive.

Therefore Yahoo should be responsible for only acting to release e-mail content that would have been related to the cause of death and could've helped an investigation. Justin Ellsworth's case is a controversial one. On one hand, the case is not one where the individual was murdered or kidnapped. Ellsworth was a military soldier and unfortunately lost his life during combat, dying in Al Anbar. His parents then wanted more closure, which is understandable.

However, Ellsworth was killed in a manner that really did not pertain to the information contained in e-mail content his parents would have seen. Despite Yahoo being at first resistant to providing such e-mail content, the family took the Internet giant to court. According to the research, "An Oakland County probate judge signed an order Wednesday directing Yahoo Inc. To provide the contents of the e-mail account used by Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth," (Associated Press, 2005, p 1).

The parents got their wish, but at the same time they were in many ways violating the privacy of their son. Moreover, the family was still left unsatisfied even after reading the content of his e-mails. Ellsworth only had content from them, as well as spam and some other random communications. There was no closure that they had sought through violating his privacy in the first place.

This then invokes concerns over individual privacy, for Justin Ellsworth and his privacy should also be protected, even after the event of his death. Would Ellsworth have wanted his family to read his e-mail communications? This is a controversy over question, for it invokes the idea that sometimes privacy is more important to the individual than anything else.

In environments where we have to fight for our privacy rights every day, was the decision to allow the family to view his e-mails regresses in terms of our fight to protect our rights on the Internet. Issues over privacy are pertinent in a variety of technological environment. According to the research, "With today's trends, keeping a handle on your privacy is going to become even harder a year from now," (Spring, 2010, p 1).

Sites like Facebook are currently in the midst of a controversy over how much user content is being exploited for advertising revenues. Currently, the user has little choice but to use certain services and expose their privacy in the process. The Internet and the technologies which drive it forward are constantly developing, finding new ways to invade individual privacy, sometimes without us even knowing.

It is hard enough to protect your privacy when one is alive, thus just because the event of one's death, this privacy invasion becomes even more likely. Contemporary legislators have taken action in order to fight against these breaches of privacy from companies driven by framing innovative technologies. As more and more citizens show concern for protecting their privacy, they're looking for authority figures in government to help them do so. The thing is the users cannot stand alone against these giant Internet conglomerates.

Thus, recently "The Obama administration's reported push for stronger federal oversight over online privacy is likely to be welcomed by privacy advocates increasingly concerned about the data collection and data sharing practices of big Internet companies," (Vijayan, 2010, p 1). With the government taking the stance of protecting individual protection rights, the court decision in the Ellsworth case clearly shows steps moving backwards in our fight for our privacy on the Internet.

Users already have to protect themselves from big corporations; they should not have to worry about their privacy being breached by their own family members, and left absolutely necessary or in cases where permission was granted. Overall, Yahoo should have been forced to turn over Justin Ellsworth's emails only in the event that content within those e-mails would lead investigators to the cause of his death.

By turning over Ellsworth's e-mails they signified to their users that they would be willing to break evident and share user information without a fight. Since necessity was lacking in this particular case, with Ellsworth's death being documented and not reliant.