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COURT REPORTER
As more of life gets digitized, questions raised about what happens in death [The Associated Press by Anick Jesdanun] As more of our personal lives go digital, family members, estate attorneys and online service providers are increasingly grappling with what happens to those information bits when their owners die.
Sometimes, the question involves e-mail
Other service providers, including America
sitting on a distant server; other times, it’s
Online Inc., EarthLink Inc. and Microsoft
tirement account) or a mutual fund, they will
about the photos or financial records stored
Corp., which runs Hotmail, have provisions
ask you for the next of kin,” Catlett said.
on a password-protected computer.
for transferring accounts upon proof of death and identity as next of kin.
This week, a Michigan man publicized his
“If you put money into an IRA (individual re-
But Graham said cell phone providers and fitness centers don’t make similar requests,
struggle to access the Yahoo e-mail account
AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said the
and doing so with Internet service “is simply
belonging to his son, Marine Lance Cpl.
company gets dozens of such requests a
a turnoff and it’s not necessary. We already
Justin M. Ellsworth, 20, who was killed Nov.
day and has a separate fax number, mailing
have a process that works quite well and
13 in Iraq. Though Yahoo’s policies state that
address and full-time service representative
quite responsibly.”
accounts “terminate upon your death,” John
devoted to fulfillment.
Ellsworth said his son would have wanted to give him access.
For now, such disputes are rare, and most Nonetheless, some privacy advocates ques-
struggles for access involve family members
tion whether that’s a good approach.
who need to obtain financial records on a
“He was wanting to forward his e-mail from
computer, said Bob Weiss, president of Pass-
strangers,” Ellsworth said. “They were let-
“People might decide what they want family
word Crackers Inc., a Maryland company that
ters of encouragement. He said all their sup-
members to see or keep secret sometimes
recovers lost passwords. Less than 2 percent
port kept him motivated. We’ve talked back
for family harmony reasons,” said Peter
of Weiss’s business involves relatives of the
and forth about how we were going to print
Swire, an Ohio State University law professor
deceased, he said.
them out and put them in a scrapbook.”
who served as former President Bill Clinton’s chief privacy counselor. “They may know se-
Still, “as more of our lives go online, hosted
To release those messages in such circum-
crets of other family members that they hold
faraway, we will want to think carefully about
stances, Yahoo said, would violate the privacy
in confidence: The sister had an abortion; the
the disposition of those bits,” said Jonathan
rights of the deceased and those with whom
father had a first marriage.”
Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
they’ve corresponded. Swire said Yahoo’s policies are stricter than “The commitment we’ve made to every per-
those for medical records _ and rightly so.
Decades of laws and court decisions already
son who signs-up for a Yahoo! Mail account
He said quick access to medical records is
guide physical possessions, especially when
is to treat their email as a private communi-
needed for emergency care, and such re-
there is no will. What makes online assets
cation and to treat the content of their mes-
cords are unlikely to trample other people’s
different is the fact that they often involve
sages as confidential,” spokeswoman Mary
privacy rights, as e-mail could.
some service contract with an outside company, said R. Michael Daniel, an estates
Osako said in a statement. Rather than maintaining an either-or policy,
attorney in Pittsburgh.
But Osako said the company was dealing with
perhaps service providers could ask users
uncharted territory and was willing to con-
when they sign up whether they’d like e-mail
The easiest approach, Internet scholars say,
tinue discussions with Ellsworth. One option
disclosed upon death, said Jason Catlett,
is simply to leave behind a password.
could involve Ellsworth getting a court order,
president of the privacy-rights group Junk-
which Yahoo would abide. Ellsworth said he
busters Corp.
preferred to avoid litigation.
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“I think this (Yahoo) case will be helpful to people who are thinking about issues
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