Email ownership and privacy rights

¶ … Owns Your Email?

Who has access to your most private thoughts and conversations? In a world where technology is constantly changing, issues of privacy are becoming more and more strained. As the technology develops, many are concerned about how it could possibly be intruding on their rights to live private lives. No example represents this strange struggle more than the case of Justin Ellsworth, a soldier who was killed in the line of duty in our current war over seas. After hearing of his death, Ellsworth's parents prompted Yahoo! To give them their son's passwords to his email account in order to help them better understand their son and ease their grief. Although Ellsworth was already deceased, his privacy was still at stake. The case here brings up serious issues about privacy in a modern era, and just how far that privacy should be protected in a world with new rules. On the one hand, Yahoo! was trying to uphold principles of utilitarianism by protecting the privacy rights of its users; yet, there was still opposition that stated the company owed an obligation to the grieving parents of Justin Ellsworth.

Yahoo!'s stance was clearly against giving away the deceased marine's passwords to anyone that he had not previously given to himself. Thus, when Ellsworth's parents came to the company declaring they had a right based on their intimate relationship with the deceased, the company initially put up a fight. According to the research, "The internet company refuses to give out the marine's password, saying that would violate its privacy rules," (Leach 2005). The company has its own terms and user agreements that every user signs off on that respects their individual privacy rights. These terms were essentially created as a way to protect individual privacy, and ensure users that their password and account information is safe within the hands of Yahoo! Such agreements explicitly state that individual accounts are nontransferable. This means that under the agreement Ellsworth signed, Yahoo! was forbidden to give his account information to anyone. Ellsworth's parents were dismayed, and took legal action against the internet service provider in hopes that a judge would side with them as they grieved the loss of their son. The case went to court, and eventually the parents won the right to access their deceased son's email account. Here, the research makes it clear that Yahoo! "only yielded under court order" (Leach 2005). The company's determination to keep the email passwords secret was a testament to the company's devotion to upholding its own principles and regulations.

The company was following its own set of regulations which were constructed to protect its millions of users from potential hazardous privacy violations. Yahoo! was not trying to further harm Ellsworth's parents. Rather, the company was looking out for the majority of its users' rights in a case which could set a precedent to further abuse their privacy rights. Essentially, by taking such a strong stance against breaking their own regulations, even in cases of death, Yahoo! was upholding utilitarian principles in order to benefit the community as a whole. Thus, the company was focused on upholding a commitment to privacy for all of its members. It was unfortunate that Justin Ellsworth lost his life in the line of battle, but that could not jeopardize the promise Yahoo! made to its millions of users. If the company was to just give up one user password, it could have the potential to do so again, thus risking the privacy rights of others. Moreover, there are also deontological considerations against the internet company giving up private account information, even after death. In this sense, the company had an obligation to Justin Ellsworth to uphold its promise of protecting his personal information. The marine had himself agreed to the terms and conditions of Yahoo! service, showing that one of his wishes may have been to keep his personal emails private, even after his death. This is essentially keeping the sanctity of privacy agreements.

Many who opposed Yahoo!'s distinct stand against providing Ellsworth's parents with his password. This was also taking a deontological perspective, even though it is from a different vantage point. In this opposition, Yahoo! had an obligation to Ellsworth's parents in that the company held access to information that could have potentially given them some peace. This was a much more personal obligation to a limited number of people. Yahoo! would have to sacrifice its commitment to the larger society in order to meet such a limited obligation to a single grieving couple.