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Yahoo denies family access to dead Marine's e-mail

I

isasir

Diamond Member
Text

WIXOM, Michigan (AP) -- The family of a Marine killed in Iraq is pleading with Internet giant Yahoo! for access to his e-mail account, which the company says is off-limits under its privacy policy.

Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, 20, was killed by a roadside bomb on November 13 during a foot patrol in Al Anbar province. The family wants the complete e-mail file that Justin maintained, including notes to and from others.

"I want to be able to remember him in his words. I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do. I want to have that for the future," said John Ellsworth, Justin's father. "It's the last thing I have of my son."

But without the account's password, the request has been repeatedly denied. In addition, Yahoo! policy calls for erasing all accounts that are inactive for 90 days. Yahoo! also maintains that all users agree at sign-up that rights to a member's ID or contents within an account terminate upon death.

"While we sympathize with any grieving family, Yahoo! accounts and any contents therein are nontransferable" even after death, said Karen Mahon, a Yahoo! spokeswoman.
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Just curious about your thoughts. While I sympathize with the family, I do agree that under no circumstances should Yahoo release this information. Just like it's possible that there's a lot of positive memories there, there might also be some very private stuff that this Marine wouldn't want his family to know.
 
I agree...Yahoo has to stick to their guns...Privacy Policies are in place for a reason, to protect a person's privacy, dead or alive.
 
Originally posted by: yobarman
I agree with yahoo... but they should just fine a hacker. How hard could it be to hack a yahoo account?
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Hell, if he did a password reminder, I'm sure his family could figure out the answer.
 
Originally posted by: yobarman
I agree with yahoo... but they should just fine a hacker. How hard could it be to hack a yahoo account?
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bcoz hacking agrees with yahoo's policy?
 
yup they shouldn't have special circumstances no matter how admirable a person was in their life.

BTW, my gf knew my email passwords...
 
I have to agree with that one. It really sucks in this case; but Yahoo can't legally or ethically go against the policy that the poor fellow signed up under. It would be nice if services like Yahoo gave people a choice when they signed up about that sort of thing(though they might well have to charge extra for such options, given the cost of verifying identity and death and so on) but they can't start going against their policy on specific cases. It would be rather neat if there was some service that would allow people to put chunks of data in escrow, legally protected until it was released to certain people under certain conditions that you would define when you set the thing up. I imagine that if you have a decent lawyer you can probably get this done already; but it would be nice to have something cheaper and more accessable, for cases not unlike this.
 
I agree with Yahoo. I know if I died, I wouldn't want anyone reading all of the e-mails I sent and received. And I know if one of my friends died, I wouldn't want his family reading everything I wrote. If they really want them, they should ask his friends for copies of anything they sent to him or received from him. That way the people who sent/received the e-mails can decide if they were too personal to be shared with his family.
 
Originally posted by: TallBill
Unfortunately I agree with Yahoo's decision. This is why I'll leave all of my passwords in my will.
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That's a pretty pragmatic solution...

...but Yahoo! is doing the right thing here.

-geoff
 
Never know what they'll find that they won't like. That illicit affair... the child porn... Probably better off to not know. If they want the emails, they should send out a broadcast to anyone he might have corresponded to that they'd like a copy. email goes 2 ways... check with the people who can voluntarily give them copies.
 
I side with Yahoo, but there should be, and probably is, a legal process where a Judge could here a case from interested parties and review the evidence and release such information. And the deceased would have legal representation too, I assume.

 
I am siding with the overwhelming opinion that Yahoo must adhere to its own rules. I know it's a painful time for the family but if one exception is made others will expect the same and it will negate the purpose of having the policy in place to begin with.
 
Originally posted by: mugs
I agree with Yahoo. I know if I died, I wouldn't want anyone reading all of the e-mails I sent and received. And I know if one of my friends died, I wouldn't want his family reading everything I wrote. If they really want them, they should ask his friends for copies of anything they sent to him or received from him. That way the people who sent/received the e-mails can decide if they were too personal to be shared with his family.
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That's a very good idea. I'm guessing that this individual probably did a couple of mailings to multiple people citing the ups and downs of his time spent in Iraq. Surely one of them could forward this person's original e-mail.
 
How do you hire a hacker? Is it like hiring a hitman? ...I really doubt its easy to 'hire' a hacker with any decent amount of skill, but maybe I have just seen too many script 'hackers'
 
E-mail is a two way street. When I send a message I only intend it to go to that person. Sure the family wants to see his written words, but they would also be seeing information that wasn't sent to them. Then there is the privacy of the dead, maybe he didn't want people to know he was involved in: X, Y, Z, and kept all that information private, in his yahoo e-mail.

I wholly side with Yahoo on this, for a variety of reasons.
 
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