Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Sharing an email Address is like sharing a Toothbrush

Email addresses are cheap, sometimes disposible, but sometimes also quite valuable. Why is an email address valuable? Because it is your identity. If someone uses your email address to send an email to someone else, while pretending to be you, that is identity theft in a fashion.

The most valuable thing that an online persona owns is reputation. There have been a number of very good articles written by very smart people about the reputation economy if you don't believe me. Your reputation is valuable.

So, should you allow your spouse, child, parent or girlfriend to access your email address? There is an argument that minor children should grant their parents read access to their email... but even there it is just wrong for the parent to send email in the name of their child. That's forgery, which is widely considered wrong in any ethical system.

Consider the mom who hates their daughter's boyfriend, and sends him an email breaking up with him using her daughter's email account. Is that ethical? I don't think so.

Is it any more ethical for a mother to use a child's email account to sign him up for some kind of activity that he may or may not want to participate in?

Now, you should keep your email password (and other passwords) in a sealed envelope, close to your will or living will in case something bad should happen to you. That's just common sense. But on a daily basis, sharing your email account with someone else is like sharing a toothbrush. It's economically unnecessary, and in most cases, it's just icky.

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