Can CyberSpace be more humane ?
I was reading "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L friedman and this would be one of the most cherished books of my personal collection. In one the chapters, when he discusses the case of Ellsworth vs Yahoo, he brings out a beautiful point.
Excerpts from the Book:
On November 13, 2004, Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, twenty, was killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol in Iraq. On December 21, 2004, the Associated Press reported that his family was demanding that Yahoo! give them the password for their deceased son's e-mail account so they could have access to all his e-mail, including notes to and from others. "I want to be able to remember him in his words. I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do. I want to have that for the future," John Ellsworth, Justin's father, told the AP. "It's the last thing I have of my son." We are moving into a world where more and more communication is in the form of bits traveling through cyberspace and stored on servers located all over the world. No government controls this cyber-realm. So the question is: Who owns your bits when you die? The AP reported that Yahoo! denied the Ellsworth family their son's password, citing the fact that Yahoo! policy calls for erasing all accounts that are inactive for ninety days and the fact that all Yahoo! users agree at sign-up that rights to a member's ID or account contents terminate upon death.
This is rather a classy example of another touching story which illustartes lucidly that we are caught in the web of "Who Owns XYZ on Cyberspace ?". As my knowledge is limited on this context, i am not sure who owns my mails/blog/accounts. Is it me because i am the user, the one who extensively uses it (or) the web company because it has own servers and networks which facilitates my communciation.
Probably the next evolution of the e-mail and internet should even consider the role of nominee as we have in "bank accounts" to show that the Cyberspace is bit more humane. It may not sound exciting to web companies, but might be more useful to the members of the deceased families who might be interested to revisit memories with their kith and kin. I hope there is a change which benefits somebody in this process.
-Lakshman
Excerpts from the Book:
On November 13, 2004, Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, twenty, was killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol in Iraq. On December 21, 2004, the Associated Press reported that his family was demanding that Yahoo! give them the password for their deceased son's e-mail account so they could have access to all his e-mail, including notes to and from others. "I want to be able to remember him in his words. I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do. I want to have that for the future," John Ellsworth, Justin's father, told the AP. "It's the last thing I have of my son." We are moving into a world where more and more communication is in the form of bits traveling through cyberspace and stored on servers located all over the world. No government controls this cyber-realm. So the question is: Who owns your bits when you die? The AP reported that Yahoo! denied the Ellsworth family their son's password, citing the fact that Yahoo! policy calls for erasing all accounts that are inactive for ninety days and the fact that all Yahoo! users agree at sign-up that rights to a member's ID or account contents terminate upon death.
This is rather a classy example of another touching story which illustartes lucidly that we are caught in the web of "Who Owns XYZ on Cyberspace ?". As my knowledge is limited on this context, i am not sure who owns my mails/blog/accounts. Is it me because i am the user, the one who extensively uses it (or) the web company because it has own servers and networks which facilitates my communciation.
Probably the next evolution of the e-mail and internet should even consider the role of nominee as we have in "bank accounts" to show that the Cyberspace is bit more humane. It may not sound exciting to web companies, but might be more useful to the members of the deceased families who might be interested to revisit memories with their kith and kin. I hope there is a change which benefits somebody in this process.
-Lakshman
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