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Yahoo Deletes Journalist's Pre-Paid Legacy Site After Suicide

Posted by Soulskill on from the failing-at-a-last-request dept.

New submitter digitalFlack writes "Apparently Martin Manley has been a popular blogger and newspaper journalist for many years. For his own reasons, no indication of illness, he decided sixty years on this planet was enough. He designed a 40-page website with sections such as: 'Why Suicide?' and 'Why Age 60?.' Martin planned his suicide meticulously, but to manage his legacy, he picked Yahoo. He even pre-paid for five years. After he left this mortal coil on his 60th birthday, Yahoo decided they don't want his traffic, so they took the site down. Sorry, Martin."

44 of 403 comments (clear)

  1. They didn't know he also... by sinij · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yahoo didn't know he also prepaid lawyers. Or at least lets hope so.

    Yahoo has contractual obligation to provide service, sudden death of a party is a sleazy way to weasel out of a service contract.

    1. Re: They didn't know he also... by alen · · Score: 5, Funny

      Pretty sure suicide is against the tos

    2. Re: They didn't know he also... by EvanED · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I would speculate it's not a question of how he committed suicide. Had he had a Star Wars fan site or something, it would have been left up. But that's not what it was: it was a site that, in part, explained why he committed suicide. And it may be at least somewhat reasonable for Yahoo to interpret that as promoting suicide, and quite reasonable for it to take down the site for that reason.

    3. Re:They didn't know he also... by alexgieg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Remember: it's Ya-"let's delete early Internet history because keeping 1TB around is too expensive"-hoo we're talking about.

      Never trust Yahoo. Ever.

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    4. Re:They didn't know he also... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yahoo has contractual obligation to provide service

      Do they? Have you read the contract? It is possible that the contract has a termination clause in the event of death. It is also quite likely that advocating or promoting suicide is a violation of the terms of service. Contracts have fine print for a reason.

    5. Re: They didn't know he also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It definitely belongs to his estate. No "maybe" about it.

    6. Re:They didn't know he also... by Gaygirlie · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is also quite likely that advocating or promoting suicide is a violation of the terms of service.

      To be honest, I don't see anything advocating or promoting suicide. I see him explaining his reasonings in rather clear terms and as such I'd classify it as a discussion about suicide. There is a difference between discussion and active advocation and/or promotion.

    7. Re: They didn't know he also... by Skiron · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Surely the would need to get a copy of the death certificate before they could do anything - at the moment (legally) it's just hearsay.

    8. Re: They didn't know he also... by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From what I read of it, he was talking about his personal feelings and opinions.

      I could see if it were a site that he put video of his own suicide on, or other graphic depictions, there would be a reason to remove it. In this case, there was none. It was left as his legacy, or at least for the 5 years he paid for.

      There was no good justification in taking it down, except possibly that it took too much traffic. If it were a small hosting company, and had a negative impact on services to other customers, I could see it. Yahoo has enough resources to continue supporting that site for the full term as paid for.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    9. Re: They didn't know he also... by EvanED · · Score: 3, Interesting

      From what I read of it, he was talking about his personal feelings and opinions.

      His site was explaining why he committed suicide. Basically by definition, that's him explaining why he felt that suicide was the best option in his case -- which is implicitly explaining why he thinks that suicide is the best option ever, which if you look at it the right way, is promoting suicide. It's not promoting suicide in the sense of "Hey Fred... you really oughta go kill yourself" or in the sense of "you should consider suicide in these cases ...", but I think you could say it is promoting suicide in the sense of "suicide can be, if you weigh the options, the best option." And without saying Yahoo was right or wrong, I can at least understand why even that would be too far for them.

    10. Re:They didn't know he also... by julesh · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yahoo has contractual obligation to provide service, sudden death of a party is a sleazy way to weasel out of a service contract.

      Unless he violates the terms of service.

      10.1 Prohibited Uses
      [...]
      You agree that you will not:
      [...]
      (p) promote or provide instructional information about illegal activities, promote physical harm or injury against any group or individual, or promote any act of cruelty to animals.

      A section of his site was instructions on how to commit suicide, which is an illegal act in many (most?) jurisdictions.

    11. Re:They didn't know he also... by Grieviant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do they? Have you read the contract? It is possible that the contract has a termination clause in the event of death. It is also quite likely that advocating or promoting suicide is a violation of the terms of service. Contracts have fine print for a reason.

      Don't they? Have YOU read the contract? Is it fair to assume that documenting one's own reasons for suicide constitutes promoting it?

      Indeed, contracts do have fine print for a reason. That reason is for high and mighty business thugs such as yourself to be able to dick over little guys without making them aware of it beforehand. It's pretty simple - Yahoo was caught trying to (quietly) weasel out of their responsibilities to avoid backlash for hosting speech that they realized would be unpopular with some people. A spineless move.

    12. Re: They didn't know he also... by kasperd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      it was a site that, in part, explained why he committed suicide.

      I'm sure anybody who knew him would like to read it. That may very well include people who didn't know him all that well, so a website would be an obvious way to reach all potentially interested parties. A major part of the reason for creating the site may be to comfort those left behind. With that in mind I cannot see how anybody could think it was an acceptable move from Yahoo.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    13. Re:They didn't know he also... by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Remember: it's Ya-"let's delete early Internet history because keeping 1TB around is too expensive"-hoo we're talking about. Never trust Yahoo. Ever.

      You're talking about Geocities? Well, actually it was *several* terabytes, so it would have cost them two or three *hundred* dollars to store all that. Quite a lot for a small company like Yahoo. *cough*

      In all seriousness, I agree with you- I guessed at the time of the shutdown that the storage requirements would be in the ballpark of the low-terabytes (slight underestimate, but not by much), and- more importantly- that the cost of the traffic would (by modern standards) be negligible. Indeed, the profit or loss- either way- at that time would have been small by Yahoo's standards, but I figured out that they should still be able to easily turn a profit it by making it archive-only. *If* they'd been that bothered about it, that is.

      The conclusion I came to was that the reasons for shutting down Geocities "probably had more to do with either indirect legal issues (tax write-offs, accounting and the like) or some executive who wanted to be seen doing something that looked more significant than it actually was." Things I read later pretty much confirmed I was right on this.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    14. Re: They didn't know he also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The content does, but the publishing contract ends. A dead person can not be part in a contract. Continued publication would be Yahoo's responsibility, and they would be nuts to keep publishing something this controversial.

    15. Re: They didn't know he also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So life insurance doesn't need to pay up, because their contract is with the deceased, not the beneficiaries?

    16. Re: They didn't know he also... by temcat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because there are times when it is OK.

    17. Re: They didn't know he also... by kasperd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      you don't see why Yahoo would take down a site arguing implicitly "it's okay to commit suicide"?

      I sincerely believe that for every problem you try to solve through censorship, there exists a better solution. And I think freedom of speech is too important to take such a site down. But Martin Manley's right to publish this is much less important than everybody else's right to read it. There are other deceased people who have written much more harmful texts than this, which are not being censored. If you disagree with something, you present a different point of view rather than applying censorship.

      I will not say this suicide was the right thing to do. But I think committing suicide leaving your friends wondering why is much worse than letting them know your reasoning behind. It would be even better if we could get those people to talk with somebody beforehand such that the decision to commit suicide is not something they are making all on their own. There may be alternatives. But we may need some changes to society to make that happen.

      The concern about getting so ill or getting so old and worn out that you have only suffering left in your life is a valid concern. If any animal was in such a state you'd put it down because that is considered the most humane thing to do. Why do people have to be treated less humane than that? Martin Manley decided to put an end to his own life before it came to that. If he had believed he could be assisted to end his life once there really was nothing left to live for, he might not have been so proactive about it. In other words in a society a bit more positive towards suicide, Martin Manley might still have been alive today.

      There are also stories about terminally ill people who travel to a different country just so they can legally be assisted in suicide instead of facing a slow and painful death. Some of those decide to take this final trip to die sooner than they would otherwise have done because they would otherwise be too weak to take the trip. Many would much rather have stayed home and lived for a few months longer among friends and family and then end life quietly when their health was getting too bad.

      Finally being assisted in a suicide after having talked it over with your closest relatives plus a doctor and a psychiatrist would be the most humane way to end life for some people. When those people commit suicide on their own, it is a failure of society to treat them humanely.

      It is even worse when a young and mostly healthy person end their own life. I don't know if I could ever be convinced that could ever be the right way to go. A friend of mine did that at the age of 31. I didn't see that coming. I don't know if I will ever stop wondering if there was anything we could have done differently.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    18. Re: They didn't know he also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Some facts that people who fault Yahoo for taking the site down overlook:

      • The journalist disclaimed all rights to the site's content and released it into the public domain. Thus there is no content to inherit. His estate has exactly as much claim to the content as anybody else: None. Yahoo can not violate anybody's right to the content, as there is no such right.
      • The Yahoo terms of service clearly state that their hosting contracts are non-transferable and end upon death. With the contract ends Yahoo's obligation to keep publishing the content. His estate does not have grounds to sue for contract violation, as Yahoo is not in breach of the contract. The contract ended. His estate can enter into a new contract, but...
      • Condoning self-harm is against Yahoo's terms of service. The site contains information about suicide methods and makes an argument for killing oneself before old age sets in. Thus the site is clearly in violation of Yahoo's terms of service, and Yahoo would be within their contractual rights if they had chosen to remove the site even before he killed himself.

      Also, "-1, Troll" is not an acceptable expression of disagreement.

    19. Re: They didn't know he also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Freedom of speech does not obligate a private party to be your voice platform.

    20. Re: They didn't know he also... by blackest_k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually you can read what he wrote, just on a mirror of his site. Inadvertently yahoo have invoked the Streisand effect.

      It is interesting what he has written and also what he hasn't. One thing was a failing memory that was one thing he didn't like the idea of having to be taken care of in future years another issue was the costs associated with getting old his medical insurance was due to expire sometime next year and he didn't see that as being affordable. Wanting to leave a legacy and not to be a burden on the state.
      There are other reasons that he wrote about which you can choose to read about if you wish.

      What he didn't write about was love, ok he was interested in the future of his step children but there was no love in his life, nobody who was special in his eyes nobody who he woke up with each morning no one who he treasured being in his life. That to me seems key. I'm not young and with my health i can't expect to live to any great age. Do i want to die earlier than i have too? the answer is without doubt no.

      4 years ago I had a heart attack and in the ambulance, although i didn't know it was a heart attack i knew it was serious and I also knew I felt i was too young for this! Three months later I had to return to the hospital, but this time i drove myself and with periods of crushing chest pains i got there and parked my car and walked the 400 or 500 yards to the A&E department - maybe the hardest walk of my life. To finally present myself at the desk and say i think i'm having a heart attack in actuality it was a 97% blocked coronary artery. Was a tough 24 hours but after a stent fitted i was ok again.

      Recovery in the months that followed was difficult, the 50% rate after a first heart attack is about 6 to 8 years and thats after 30% who died of that first heart attack. Becoming mortal, and realising there was a fair chance that I might not last that much longer was quite depressing, some outstanding long term goals have had to be put aside as I don't see them as viable any more.

      On the positive side since then I've met the most wonderful woman around my age (for a change) and loving her makes all the difference. We are living too far apart right now but that we can work on. She is in my thoughts everyday and well I hope we get to grow old together. You see being rich or poor is not that important but being with someone you love is. Without love your life can be without reason.

      Thing is you don't know when fate will bring you together but it can happen any day if you leave an opportunity for it too occur. Any way love is why I want to keep on living, trying to do the best I can for the people I care about and why I won't bow out by suicide. Family, friends, and an understanding lover what else matters.

           

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
    21. Re: They didn't know he also... by hedwards · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This isn't a freedom of speech issue. Freedom of speech is there so that people can contribute to public discourse without having to worry about being sent to prison or killed.

      If you're going to kill yourself before anybody has a chance to issue a rebuttal, there's no point in free speech at all. You could do that just fine in East Germany during the height of the Stazi.

      Bottom line though is that freedom of speech isn't particularly useful if it's just a collection of sound bites where nobody is responding and or defending their position. Sure, it's better than having no freedom of speech, but it's not particularly useful.

    22. Re: They didn't know he also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Linked from the first paragraph of the index page is the following text (copied from a mirror of the site): "I, Martin Manley, being the creator and owner of all information on the site "MartinManleyLifeAndDeath.com", neither hold nor retain any claim or copyright on any part of this web-site. I do not grant these rights to any individual person or entity either in life or upon death. Rather I release all rights to this work -ï making it public domain. Anyone can do with it whatever they wish. Martin Allen Manley August 15, 2013"

      From the general Yahoo terms of service: "You agree that your Yahoo! account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death."

      From the Yahoo web hosting terms of service: "You agree that you will not: [...] promote physical harm or injury against any group or individual".

    23. Re: They didn't know he also... by MrKaos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why? Because it is controversial? Some one needs to talk about it. This is the core problem now. Everyone is afraid to offend someone.

      Political Correctness can be so fucking offensive.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    24. Re: They didn't know he also... by realityimpaired · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Three months later I had to return to the hospital, but this time i drove myself and with periods of crushing chest pains i got there and parked my car and walked the 400 or 500 yards to the A&E department - maybe the hardest walk of my life.

      I was going to say no offense in prefix to this, but rethought it... offense intended....

      Driving to the hospital when you think you're having a heart attack is one of the most monumentally stupid ideas I have ever heard of in my entire life, and that includes 6 years in the army and several more years working for the government as a civilian. If it's a medical emergency, call an ambulance. That is what they are there for.

      And don't try to tell me it was rural so therefore no ambulance service: you yourself said that you had to walk a quarter mile to the front door of the hospital after parking, which suggests a large and mostly full parking lot. This suggests that you were in an urban area.

    25. Re: They didn't know he also... by gronofer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As argued by Hegesias of Cyrene thousands of years ago. He wrote in a book that life was so miserable that people would be better off killing themselves, and it was supposedly so convincing that many people followed the advice. The local king wasn't impressed.

    26. Re: They didn't know he also... by gordo3000 · · Score: 4, Informative

      you're 100% wrong. debts, like assets, first sit with the estate of the deceased. all assets are used to pay off debts, and then, what is left over is inheritance. an Estate can go into bankruptcy, the only way kids get hit with a "horrible mortgage that bankrupts them" is they were too foolish to put the estate into bankruptcy and give up the house, or too foolish to , you know, read the documents that said "hey, there is a mortgage against this home, taking the house involves taking over the mortgage".

  2. Fuck Yahoo! by ShaunC · · Score: 5, Informative

    In the meantime, there is a mirror located here.

    --
    Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
  3. Why isn't this tagged with the censorship logo? by excelsior_gr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not only was this website paid for, it was obviously part of the deceased's last wishes. If Yahoo has no respect for the law or its customers, it should at least show some respect to a dude's last wish.

    1. Re:Why isn't this tagged with the censorship logo? by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is a blatant lie ie a lawyer appointed by a person to carry out their last will and testament is bound by contractual law to honour that contract. Same for leaving estate to pets et al. Face it Yahoo are a bunch of douche bag shits heads for what they have done and the stink of an ex-google bimbo is all over it.

      As for some of the reasons the dude committed suicide, reincarnation might obviate the exercise and even worse place him in even worse circumstance ;D.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  4. Re:Mirror? by dmbasso · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.zeroshare.info/

    --
    `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
  5. uh oh by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Funny

    He's gonna haunt the shit out of them now

  6. Re:good for him! by Gaygirlie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This little quote from the guy's site:

    The thought of being in a nursing home, physically or mentally disabled, was the single scariest thing I had ever thought about

    This is exactly what I've been thinking for years now; I've always thought that I will commit a suicide and end my life one day when I feel I'm getting too old, when I feel I'm losing control over my own thoughts and body. Honestly, the most horrible thing that I could imagine is being locked up in a bed 24/7 at the mercy of others without being able to do anything by myself -- I do not want to end there. I will commit a suicide if it looks like it's coming to that, I want to be in charge of my own life. As such I fully understand the guy's reasoning and I agree: good for him.

  7. Winning strategy by NoMoreMrNiceGuy2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. Get customers to sign up for 5 year plans of web hosting.
    2. Kill customer, make is look like a suicide.
    3.?
    4. Profit!

  8. Read a little of it by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    with the exception of some of the Alzheimer stuff he mentioned every thing he described is treatable, and even a lot of the Alzheimer stuff is. That is, if you have access to the health care. This sounds more like a failing of our society than anything else.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Read a little of it by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why isn't he entitled to decide when he has lived enough? Why does he need valid medical reasons?

      I think you're right, it's a failing of society. Society rather plays for god and decide who lives and who dies.

      (I only hope he performed a clean suicide rather than jumping in front of a train, or something)

  9. Yahoo definitely wrong choice. Or was it? by Joiseybill · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was gonna rant about refunding the estate for the residual value of his contract, and for the 5 year domain registration.. or at least transfer it to his estate.. BUT.. Yahoo's TOS specifically deals with death.
    "No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability. You agree that your Yahoo! account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted."

    Allegedly, this was in effect for a while.. the page
    http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html
    says it was last updated March 16, 2012.
    For a man who made a living with his words, maybe he should have read the TOS ( short by some comparison). Or, maybe like the false 'treasure hunt', he knew Yahoo would cancel his account, and through both methods he gains some post-mortem notoriety. Either way.. I hope he gets some pleasure out of all this attention to his life being generated today.

  10. Re:good for him! by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Putting a bullet to your head in front of witnesses and the police means there's little to no investigation - or, cost to society. They clean up the street, but it's obvious why, how, and when you died.

    Disappearing into the woods could prompt a million-dollar manhunt trying to 'rescue' you, until or unless they find you first. And once they do find you, they'll have to do an autopsy to investigate cause of death - possibly quite an expensive one, as your remains will have degraded. You'll cause a lot of extra cost and grief to society that you could have avoided.

    Maybe that was important to him.

    --
    'Sensible' is a curse word.
  11. Re:good for him! by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I intend to be living a fantastic life and raising hell for another decade or three yet. Deal with it.

    So... your magic number isn't 60, but possibly 85 or 90. Ok, that's fine. I am more than happy to let you define how long you think your quality of life is good. So what happens after that?

    I've one great-great-uncle who lived to be 106. (They found him one evening leaned up against a fencepost, where he'd evidently stopped to take a little break whilst making his daily walk around his farm. Nothing wrong with him, the doctor said, except that he finally just wore out.)

    Yeah, and I've got an 80+ year old great uncle in-law or something who's been bedridden for years now. Adult-onset type 2 diabetes. The diabetes so far has caused blindness, and has led to the amputation of both legs. It could happen to anyone, even you. 51 is a long way from 70.

    My own grandfather developed Alzheimer's, and although he remained perfectly healthy in body until the end, that was probably the most horrifying and heart wrenching thing to undergo. He was terrified at least for as long as knew what was happening, and it wasn't much better for those around him.

    We all wish to age gracefully, die in our sleep peacefully, and while I agree arbitrarily committing suicide on your 60th birthday is nuts... committing suicide when the circumstances of your final days are rapidly becoming apparent is pretty rational in my books.

  12. Re:Mirror? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.zeroshare.info/

    http://web.archive.org/web/20130815235729/http://martinmanleylifeanddeath.com as well, which is guaranteed to reflect the original.

  13. He was heard to say: by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "They'll shut down my pre-paid legacy account over my dead body!"

  14. Re:good for him! by Sir+Holo · · Score: 4, Informative

    This little quote from the guy's site:

    The thought of being in a nursing home, physically or mentally disabled, was the single scariest thing I had ever thought about

    This is exactly what I've been thinking for years now...

    I worked as a nurses' aide in a nursing home one college during summer. (Nurses' Aide = butt-wiper.) It was a depressing, terrifying job. Most "residents" had bed-pads because they couldn't get up to go poo. We had:

    * A woman who had long lost her mind, was cemented in a fetal position, and regularly coded. Staff had to restart her heart each time, because she had no living relatives or living will.
    * A woman who had long lost control of her body, but not her mind, and was just never visited by any of her children.
    * The many who would be tied down to their bed, to prevent them from getting up and wandering around.
    * The profoundly retarded girl (36 yo) that staff would purposely put into (rigid) seizure, in order to make it easier to change her bedding.
    * The Alzheimer's woman who thought I was her son. When she'd be combative to other staff, they'd have me ask her, "please mom, just eat this pudding," which had sleep meds mixed in.
    * Bedsores.
    * And Golda, senile and assumed incapable of coherent speech. Staff were just to lazy to listen between the word salad and half-words. She eventually spoke a full sentence to me ("I need to go to the bathroom"), the only one in five years, I was told. I took her in, stepped away, and she had her first taste of freedom in years.

    Needless to say, I will not allow myself to fall into such a situation in infirmity. Adult children of old people –– Your parent knows that living alone at home, doing what s/he wishes to do, may suffer a fatal fall or similar in their home. They are probably at peace with this. Don't let your own fear of personal, potential guilt lead you to essentially put your aging parent in a white-walled jail for their remaining years. Would you want to spend your last 10 years of life in a bed, with only a TV to keep you company?

  15. Re:good for him! by worf_mo · · Score: 3, Informative

    On his website he describes why he chose this method and place. He wanted to make sure that it did work and did not simply leave him in a vegetative state (hence the firearm), did not cause any harm to other people (5 AM at a police station's parking lot - the coordinates are on his website), and he placed a suicide call to the police before killing himself to make sure that his body would immediately be found by someone professionally trained to handle the situation. I love life way too much to think about suicide, but apparently this gentleman put a lot of thought into it and wanted to make sure he caused the least possible harm.

  16. Re:good for him! by fatphil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've made a dear friend promise that she will help me get what I need for the last hobby I take up when I feel I'm getting old - heroin-and-handgliding. Gonna go out with a splat!

    Suicide and euthenasia are ancient taboos, with a strong religious influence propping that view up in the supposedly modern day. A truly enlightened populace would be able to maturely address, and deal with, such issues as simple life choices.

    "Checking out today sir?"
    "Yes, thanks; I've enjoyed my stay".

    --
    Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863