Law and Technological Developments Justin Ellsworth's Parents Essay

Law and Technological Developments

Justin Ellsworth's parents should not have been given access to his e-mail correspondence. Notwithstanding the court order, Yahoo!'s decision to disclose Mr. Ellsworth's e-mail to his parents seriously compromises privacy rights and is not supported under either a utilitarian or deontological moral framework.

The Utilitarian Perspectives

According to West (2004), "[u]tilitarianism is the ethical theory that the production of happiness and reduction of unhappiness should be the standard by which actions are judged right or wrong and by which the rules of morality, laws, public policies, and social institutions are to be critically evaluated" (p. 1). Stated differently, "the rightness of actions is to be judged by their consequences" (Smart, 1956, p. 344). Accordingly, in Mr. Ellsworth's case, a utilitarian must ask whether disclosing his e-mail -- e-mail that was protected from disclosure by an explicit privacy policy -- is justified by the consequences. We do not know the long-term consequences from a court-ordered disclosure of correspondence to next-of-kin; in the short-term, however, online bloggers and others lamented Yahoo!'s decision (Leach, 2005, p. 12). The apparent "consequences" of Yahoo!'s actions, as seen by these individuals, is that one's privacy is no longer safe, even if it bears the indicia of a privacy policy. These viewpoints are not without merit. Indeed, from an extreme utilitarian point-of-view, one may argue that Yahoo!'s actions undermine the very essence of the privacy policy between the user and the company.In other words, Yahoo! did not follow the "rules . . . Of common sense morality" (Smart, 1956, p. 346).

The justification, then, for disclosing the e-mail to Mr. Ellsworth's parents hinges on whether the decision creates greater happiness for the "whole." On a micro scale, Mr. Ellsworth's parents are certainly satisfied with the court's order, and are undoubtedly more "happy" now than they were as a result of the decision, i.e., the consequence. They now have access to a part of their son's life that they may not have otherwise seen; messages he may have wanted to send, things he may have wanted to say, memories they would not have otherwise had. On the other hand, this disclosure undermines the very essence of agreements, to one degree or another. Even though Yahoo! stood by its long-held policy not to disclose the contents of Mr. Ellsworth's messages, under threat of court-order, they conceded. If we compare the "happiness" that this decision creates for the rest of society, certainly, it cannot be said that the consequences of this decision, on a macro level, justify the decision; many more people are experiencing "pain" from this decision in the form of increased apprehension of one's private life and matters. Accordingly, from a utilitarianism point-of-view, Ellsworth's parents should not have been given access to his e-mail.

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The Deontological Perspective

In contrast to utilitarianism, deontological moral beliefs are premised on the notion.....