Module 2 - Ethics - Yahoo!

Justin Ellsworth and his father communicated through email as often and frequently as possible during his tour to Iraq as a Marine. Both Justin and his father were planning on his return to make a scrap book of all their emails during his deployment. It was very misfortunate, Justin Ellsworth was Killed In Action (KIA) only a few days after his last correspondence with his father. After Justin’s death his father, John Ellsworth, wanted access to his son’s email account. Stating that he wanted to know what kind of mind frame his son was in before his death. John sent numerous informal request to Yahoo! asking for access to his son’s email account or if they would transfer it to his name. What John and a lot of people tend to over look is the terms of service agreement by quickly clicking through and filling in the blanks when setting up an email account. However, it specifically states in the Terms of Service when opening a Yahoo! email account:

No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability. You agree that your Yahoo! account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted.

Yahoo! denied John Ellsworth’s request for all of the emails from his son’s account sighting the terms of service. Displeased with this reply, John started to speak out through the media trying to achieve public support hoping this would sway Yahoo!’s decision. After having the public’s ear and still unable to change Yahoo!‘s mind he filed a lawsuit against Yahoo! for his son’s email account. With a lot of the public concerned and debating this case the courts finally came to a decision. Yahoo! was ordered by the court to relinquish to the family soft copies of all emails sent to and from Justin’s account(Justin Ellsworth, Deceased, No. 2005-296, 651-DE (Oakland Co., Mich., Prob. Ct.) )....