I have about a dozen e-mail accounts spread all over the net but I keep a printout in our safety deposit box along with many other things a print-out of all of my login names and passwords in a sealed envelope.
But not everyone has pre-planned for something bad happening to them. A Marine who was unfortunately killed in action in Iraq has a Yahoo e-mail account that the family is trying to secure before the account expires. Yahoo has refused to give the account password to the family.
E-mail accounts could contain information that the family would cherish but it also could contain information that would leave a bad taste in their mouth. I think Yahoo should give in to the families wishes, but I would hope with enough public pressure they would turn the account over. [CNN]
As some blogger pointed out, does the senders of the emails in his mailbox not have a right to privacy?
I agree with the previous comment. I think Yahoo is, in fact, doing the “right thing” by *not* giving the mailbox contents to the family.
If it were a private diary, or something similar, I might see an argument (still debatable) that the family had a right to see it and that the user had lost his right to privacy by, well, dying. However, e-mail has both a sender and a receiver, and the sender of those messages (or the receiver of the messages in his Sent folder) is very likely still alive and protected.
On the other hand, had this been a box of letters kept at his home, would it be different? Should the family refrain from looking in?
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