Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Should Happen To Your Data After You Die?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Death is Nature's way of telling you it's time to get off the Internet. But when you finally shuffle off this mortal coil, you leave something behind: all your email and other digital assets. That's a huge problem not only for the deceased — once you're on the wrong side of the Great Beyond, there's no way to delete those incriminating messages — but also any relatives who might want to access your (former) life. And it's a problem Google's seeking to solve with the new Inactive Account Manager. (In an April 11 blog posting, Google product manager Andreas Tuerk suggested that Inactive Account Manager wasn't a 'great name' for the product, but maybe the company shouldn't be so hard on itself: it's a way better name than, say, Google Death Dashboard.) Inactive Account Manager will delete your Google-related data (Gmail, etc.) after a set amount of time, or else send that data to 'trusted contacts' you set up before your untimely demise. Which raises an interesting, semi-Google-related question: What do you want to have happen to your data after you die? Give it to loved ones, or have an automated system nuke it all? Should more companies that host email and data offer plans like Inactive Account Manager?"
I don't care, I'm self centered and dead option?
1. Husband dies, google releases data, wife finds out husband spent all excess cash on cam whores.
2. Google deletes husband's data, treasure map / account numbers are lost.
3. Husband makes another unrelated gmail account, a set time later, wife is notified husband is dead while eating dinner with him.
Google just can't win here can they? :)
Taking everybody with me.
It will be like you never existed
Is it possible to be low-level formatted after you are gone?
"How'd he die?" "Head crashed." "Oh, ow."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Or its a sneaky way of Google finding the email address of the person your trust the most?
Probably your spouse.
Is it possible to be low-level formatted after you are gone?
Yes. It's called composting.
I have stave IV lung cancer, and maybe a few weeks left to go. Since I was an only child, both of my parents are gone, and I never married or had children, I basically have nobody who would want to have my data.
So, I am basically just erasing myself from existence. There is very little on the Internet with my name on it to begin with - no facebook, LinkedIn, or any other social media like that. I do have a few hundred family photos from when I was much young that I scanned in. When I am close, I will say my goodbyes to my parents (again) and delete those, too.
Death is a profound experience. When you realize yours is coming and there isn't anything that can be done about it, you begin to want to disconnect from the hive and spend your last days alone to ponder your life and existence. It's not something I expected - when I was first diagnosed I thought I would want to party as much as possible until I passed - spend as much time with friends as I could. But, that turned out not to be the case.
I'm really too weak at this point to do much of anything except sit around and talk or surf, but when I left my job and cashed out my life insurance, I did spend some time volunteering and giving money away. I didn't feel any need to take pictures, or develop memories. It felt much more like a final responsibility to dispose of my wealth and give it to people who could do something good with it.
Now I really only get online to talk about my imminent death and try to pass on what little knowledge I have about the subject when the topic comes up. The truth is, death makes you grow old. I'm 40 and feel like I have lived 90 years.
Anyway, your data may mean something to someone - why wait until you die to pass it on? Give it to people now - especially those good thoughts that you think might make them happy. There's no reason for you to make someone think "why couldn't he have said this to me while he was alive??" That's just cruel.
Life is short. Shorter than you think.
That's the way, I think, except for those who flat out don't care. I've given a few people, the same that I've named and filed with my advanced directive, an envelope with master password to 'The Vault' so that they can unload what they please and close the accounts. Still have to write a will and have it notarized.
It's not so much that I care a lot about digital stuff vanishing into mass storage somewhere but I don't want to leave the people I care about with possibly vexing dangling digital details.
Computer goes to a friend anyway, so no worries about anything embarrassing on the drives; my home folder will be available to family and friends - family pics, favorite comics, possibly useful links and documents and some stray writing. They don't want it, erase it.
I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with Google's approach to a dead man switch, but it's a helluva good start; it's a nice thing to do and it could help keep things smooth for them as well.
But I'd suggest doing the bulk of arrangements in meat space. Do it now: we don't know our time, so it doesn't hurt to not leave as much of a mess behind as doing nothing. Folks above are right, tho - when I'm gone I'm likely not going to care anymore. Dead is probably just that. If there is anything after, whatever one's beliefs, you won't find out until it happens.