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...
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