"Albert Gidari, director of privacy for Stanford University Law School’s Center for Internet and Society in California, thoroughly disagrees with his colleagues on the east coast. He told Quartz (in an email, of course) that the Massachusetts decision was “nonsense” and that this question didn’t even really need resolving.
“This issue has been around since the dawn of email,” wrote Gidari. Email service providers have different policies and procedures, but all follow federal law, which prohibits the disclosure of the content of communications to anyone without user consent. Absent the clearly expressed wishes of a deceased user in a will, an account will be abandoned and should ultimately be deleted, he argues."
- Date Published:10/18/2017
- Original Publication:Quartz