Illinois Prof Calls for a Federal Law To Safeguard Digital Afterlives

An anonymous reader writes "A new paper from Professor Jason Mazzone at the University of Illinois calls for federal laws to regulate what happens to digital accounts after the account holder's death. Mazzone argues that Facebook and other online services have policies for deceased users' accounts that do not adequately protect the individual property and privacy interests at stake. The full text of the paper (called "Facebook's Afterlife") is also available: "

Comments

Here's my solution

[damn_registrars]

I just don't put the only accessible copies of important files (even photographs and blog entries) in the hands of facebook, google, or anyone of the like. Files are on my own systems (including my own webserver). Why should I trust those other sites to act in my best interest, whether I am alive or not?

Re:There Ought to be a Law

[sjames]

Probably because so many corporations would sell babies for dog food if there wasn't a law that says otherwise. There are many bad behaviors that at a personal level are covered by common decency but corporations are functionally sociopathic and only respond to laws. Then there's the people (many on /.) that for some reason think that's just fine.