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The Weird Rise of Cyber Funerals
Thanks to recent changes to privacy legislation in Europe and South Korea aimed at protecting the living, we now have more power than ever over our personal information -- even from beyond the grave. While this may have felt like a gimmick in the past, cyber funerals -- where our personal data is removed from the web posthumously -- are slowly becoming a viable option. From a report: Digital undertaking is the act of erasing and tidying up your public data after you die. It's a relatively new idea, but one that's already taking off in South Korea, according to the Korean Employment Information Service. Think of it as a ghoulish version of the European Union's right to be forgotten legislation. For most digital undertakers, the tricky task is to contact the social media companies, search engines or even media companies who publish personal information, and request for it to be deleted when their client dies. If that doesn't work, then companies -- be they in South Korea, the USA or UK -- can bury search engine results by flooding Google with new, conflicting data about the deceased. Santa Cruise, a company based in Seoul, was one of the first in South Korea to take on the task of digital undertaking. Founded in 2008, it was originally an agency for entertainment figures but now specializes in removing personal data from the internet for clients both dead and alive. The company's scope includes digital undertaking and even "reputation management" for those who have been victims of revenge porn.
"You have just been erased"
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
... is what historians call the age since the invention of copyprivilege / imarinary property.
Because it all vanishes in some corporate archives, never to be seen again, once it stops being profitable.
I guess, like always in this retarded anti-verse, we're now doubling down on the insanity.
Can I get back out of this time line of evil goatee Riker and Trump being president?
(I'm not siding with *any* politician or corporation by the way. ... In case this enraged you.)
it's already way too easy to forget what happened, even yesterday?
when creimer's enlarged water-filled heart finally explodes after decades of abuse
how long will it take to clean the internet of his digital anthrax
In case of death, delete my browser history.
I can see the point of locking social accounts so nothing new can be posted, but why go to all this work to try to erase all mentions of the person?
The only case the article really mentions is "spent convictions". Surely the mention of a conviction is more harmful to a person while they're living than once they're dead, so if they didn't try to get it removed while alive, what's the point?
The civilized world is going to reign in these datawhore companies who spy on everyone and whore out the data they capture. Itâ(TM)s long past time to start putting a halt to these monsters. Before or after death. you have a right to be forgotten. If these Silicon Valley datawhores don't like that, they are free to leave civilized countries which are not going to stand for their shite.
snowden schwartz... cast of millions
will enact this right to be forgotten nonsense.
It's one thing to protect that private info never meant to be released (ie someone secretly webcamming a man or woman jerking off), but this retraction of intentionally public info is vile and orwellian.
Back when I still used Facebook several years back, a colleague at work died. I had never had him on my Facebook friends list, but he was a "friend of friend" through others. For the next two years Facebook kept telling me "you might know" and recommending that dead guy. So yeah, some sort of cleanup would be good. I can just imagine dating sites "matching" people with dead people or the like. I wouldn't think you would want to clean up everything though. I mean, unlike the EU with their "right to be forgotten" many of us would probably like to be outlived by some of our data showing what positive influences we may have had.
Social media has all this information on people and obituaries have a lot too. Just think what one could do with all that information and pose as the dead guy. You'll know his mother's maiden name, SSN, DOB, addresses, relatives, ....
And one could wreak havoc with the living relatives too.
Posing as dead guy: "I'd like to close the joint account with my wife. Send all the money to this address. Identify myself? Easily. Here ya go!"
I want this!
If that doesn't work, then companies -- be they in South Korea, the USA or UK -- can bury search engine results by flooding Google with new, conflicting data about the deceased.
I don't want to die to have this feature available. I want it now!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
In case of death, delete my browser history.
Sure, but only after we review it and have a good laugh first.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
will agree with is that broadcasting the funeral or allow it to be viewed remotely is not bad but it is NOT an excuse to avoid going to a funeral.
This is another sign that this generation is the worse in human history. They are so lazy, self-centered and have no interpersonal skills that many wouldn't even know how to properly interact with people at a funeral. Therefore, they avoid their personal failings and avoid them.
You can only call these people kids without a future of becoming an adult.
While there are those that are disabled and live long distances that make it impossible to attend, I'm one of those, the purpose of the funeral is for the grieving to interact with people and to help those people move past their lost. Seeing that someone set their computer up to view a video stream in which no one may even being watching the computer screen as a new cat video just came on F'dBook is just extremely poor.
This particular fad is diametrically opposed to the previously existing fad of converting social media accounts of the deceased into permanent memorials, like digital gravestones.
Interestingly, more people are cremated than interred in the United States, at 50.2%, and the percentage has been creeping upward for years. Assuming the majority of cremations are voluntary rather than forced by financial necessity, it seems like these folks have found a growth business. At present, the majority of people prefer to have themselves erased rather than memorialized.
Looks like the Internet isn't going to make it easier to be a historian after all. History is more than famous people.
My Girl Friends father recent passed. He was in his upper 70's and so was his siblings. Some of those siblings were unable due to health to make it to the funeral, so relatives brought their tablets and did video chat so that they could be part of the funeral.
That is what I first thought was being discussed(I read the article) when I first looked at the title. A funeral where it was web broadcast to everyone, or everyone that would have had to travel.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
clearly you didn't even bother to read the summary, let alone the article. and when my mother died a few months ago, I wanted a way to stream the memorial service for family members that couldn't afford to attend as well as my friends who are all scattered over the country.
except the tax man will still commith.
But survivors can ignore pretty much everyone else, unless they are the legally married spouse.
But I've found that the easiest way to get out of magazine subscriptions was to claim death. They immediately send a prorated check, zero hassle. Zero "retention handlers."
He's dead, Jim.
... If that doesn't work, then companies -- be they in South Korea, the USA or UK -- can bury search engine results by flooding Google with new, conflicting data about the deceased. ...
This isn't a new practice, in-and-of-itself; rather, just a new application of existing practices. The thing is, any given attempt to remove (or obfuscate) data inevitably results in counter-measures by those who "just want data to be free." So, just as we already have tools like The Wayback Machine, for looking back at data which someone has attempted to "scrub" from public view, we can fully anticipate Google (et al) to enhance their custom date-range filtering tools, to more effectively filter out crap data inserted into the result set on any given date... assuming that the existing filters aren't already fully up to the task, of course.