Should Justin Ellsworth's Parents Have Been Given Access to His Email?

Should Justin Ellsworth’s Parents have been given access to his email? I my option, I say no in this matter. If I was in Justin’s place I wouldn’t want to see my parents to see my emails knowing what is going on in my life while I was in Iraq. I know Justin’s parents want to everything that was going on with their son’s life while over there in Iraq. But when he got killed, the Marine Corp gave his parents his personal things that he had before he was killed. One thing they didn’t give him is his email password. If Justin does not want anyone in his/her email then they just don’t give out their passwords and at the end of 30 or 60 days of non use the account is dissolved, also think Yahoo does advise users to leave for whoever they want , their password in event of untimely demise.

Justin used the Yahoo Mail service to send e-mails to members of his family which provided them with the main source of comfort. After his death, his parents requested from Yahoo! the password of their son’s e-mail account so that they could see his last words and set up a scrapbook in memory of him. Yahoo! refused, citing internal privacy policies and the contract that the marine had with Yahoo! under the section of “No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability”, which states: “You agree that your Yahoo! Account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! I.D. or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted”. The situation is complicated by the fact that Justin Ellsworth did not have a will stating his intentions, nor did he specifically ask for those rights to be transferred. In April 2005, an Oakland County probate judge signed an order which required Yahoo! to provide the family of Justin Ellsworth with soft copies of all e-mails sent to and from his e-mail account. Since Yahoo! complied without any attempt to fight the court order, we are unable...