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Hats off To Yahoo! Mail: Sticking to Its Privacy Policy Guns
Posted by Rebecca Bolin on Tuesday, December 21 @ 12:07:02 EST Privacy
The family of a dead marine is publicly demanding the password for his Yahoo! mail account. "I want to be able to remember him in his words," his father claimed, and to do this, he apparently needs all e-mail sent to and by his son. Yahoo! is refusing, sticking to its Privacy Policy, which terminates an account at death and is not sharing.

No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability. 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 copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted.
Sec. 25, Terms of Service.

The Terms of Service closely mirror the privacy policy in the limited scenarios in which Yahoo! would disclose information:

You acknowledge, consent and agree that Yahoo! may access, preserve, and disclose your account information and Content if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process; (b) enforce the TOS; (c) respond to claims that any Content violates the rights of third-parties; (d) respond to your requests for customer service; or (e) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Yahoo!, its users and the public.
The marine's father, obviously, has none of these reasons, although he could appeal to the legal system. Go Yahoo! It has said to this family that without a subpoena, they get no private information. This protects all of us, and allows us to trust that at our deaths our Yahoo! accounts stay private. Yahoo! has decided (and hopefully the courts would also) that the marine was the best to decide whether his parents should get his password. This is a tricky case for Yahoo! PR, but an easy one for Yahoo! legal; honor contracts and respect the privacy of users.
 
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Re: Hats off To Yahoo! Mail: Sticking to Its Privacy Policy Guns (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Saturday, January 22 @ 13:38:47 EST

Funny thing is that in all reality the father if he knew his son fairly well could in fact reset that password and get in to the yahoo account.

I learned the hard way (I was stalked for 8 months and they went into my account and did Just that as well as read all my mail and made copies of some to edit later for her own purposes) Just how easy it was to reset a persons password.
Needless to say It is not a hard task if in fact the person knows you well enough.

I do not however feel that if someone dies anyone should be able to get into that account.
What if after this father's son who he thought of as this wonderful clean cut person had some secret identity or habit that the father may not agree with. Now because he is looking into things that were NOT meant for him to see he will be faced with things that may be potentially hurting to him Not to mention might make his son look to be a lot different from the person he saw him as

He may think his son was one way and maybe the son was looking at odd porn or having an affair or anything that may swerve from the path Dad thought he was taking. Those things should go along with him to his grave not be shoved in to Mom and dads hands to wonder for the rest of their days


I totally agree they should not be given the info or the email


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Re: Hats of To Yahoo! Mail: Sticking to Its Privacy Policy Guns (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Wednesday, December 22 @ 16:26:06 EST
Feel bad for the family because they lost their son and wanting whatever they can still hold in their hands, but I must say I agree with Yahoo. Once we open that door, it will be hard to close. Privacy is privacy. Perhaps this will give parents and their kids/friends a subject ot discuss. If they want you to have the password, so be it. If no,t let it go.


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