Yahoo releases e-mail of deceased marine

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Privacy of E-mail

Hi, Brent.

First, it might be unfortunate, but e-mail has less privacy protection than one might think. For example, employers have a right to view every e-mail you send or receive on their computer equipment. Because of this lower threshhold for e-mail communication, I think the court made the right decision. Yahoo, to their credit, fought the good fight, but when you get down to it, e-mail is intellectual property, and upon someone's death, it should go to their next of kin.

Secondly, the Marine in question has passed on from this mortal plane, so it makes no difference to him what Yahoo does with his e-mail. It might sound cold, but he's not around to notice it. The people who *sent* him e-mail might have a problem with his parents reading his e-mails, but once you send someone mail (be it electronic or postal) you give up rights to what that person does with it. About the only difference here is that he might have written *to* people things that they don't want anyone else to know about. But there, they have no more expectation of privacy than any other form of communication. Once they tell him something, they have no control over how he uses the information, including transmitting it in an insecure medium.

I think the courts made a difficult, but correct decision.

Posted by: bhartman33@...   Posted on: 04/22/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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