The Internet provides us the ability to keep historical records like no other period of history. The lives and times of the people living in this century will be more heavily documented than any of our ancestors ever were.

While this may create privacy concerns for some, public information belongs to history, and I do not think it is wise for us to re-write history by removing or modifying the details of someone's online persona once they have passed, especially without their permission.

If you are interested in keeping your online persona online, you should probably leave your account information in the hands of someone you trust to do with it what you wish. While some accounts will die out (personal domains, e.g.) in time because they aren't maintained (and paid for in perpetuity), it would be nice if other services would maintain this information for historical records.

posted October 28, 2007

We should be able to tell if someone is dead -- I would suggest a different background color for the page. There could be post-mortem "recommendations." And the profile should remain in the system. Also, this would add another data point that should be included in search. By default, I would expect people would want to retrieve only live persons, but we could allow them to specify dead or all persons.

Just my 2 cents. For practical networking purposes, dead folks cannot actively network, but it is nice to see connections to people we admired and loved that are no longer among us.

posted October 28, 2007

I think each of us should leave instructions for someone to notifiy the site and lose the account. On myspace there is no penalty for someone not accepting an invitatin to connect. But on linkedin people would be wasting an invitation to connect if the person is deceased. We have a set number of invitations to send.

Sheilah

posted October 28, 2007

The Internet Archive(archive.org) should be the semetary of old websites. Its a good way of viewing of old websites and finding out who previously owned a domain or a yahoo profile on geocities etc...

If a person passes away on Myspace or Facebook etc... their profile should be archived automatically after a death certificate is emailed or an announcement on an obituary website.

Maybe keep the account open for 100 years with a short message of the owner having moved on and a link to archive.org.

My will of testament will include details of my online email/blogs etc.. accounts and a mind map of the people whom I have met offline personally and online. :)

posted October 28, 2007

Much like the sea, the internet takes care of its own. No person online exists solely independent of others. When they pass, the information slowly filters through all the networks that they once used.

Case in point: I once was speaking with a friend in Germany about the possibility of working for his company. I knew him through a forum unrelated to our jobs, yet never met him. I sent him a resume, he told me it looked good, and I should hear from him in two days regarding an offer. Two days passed, and I followed up. Nothing. Two weeks and no one saw anything from him. No postings, etc. After a month, I spent some effort trying to find him. A month after that I received an email from someone who had a friend who saw my post, and wrote to me directly to inform me that the person I had been looking for died in a car accident the day before he was supposed to contact me.

Now, as to what should happen?

That is in many ways intensely personal. If its a small board, where people are friendly, the forum admins may make some form of announcement. Larger organizations however, such as linkedin or facebook, may be limited in what they may do by their own privacy law, and applicable state and federal law.

As to the documenting of their comments, I believe that has already been addressed.

posted October 28, 2007

The online world is an extension of our local communities. As we move from company to company, city to city, adding connections and experience, our online record grows. At some point, when we stop growing, it necessarily should stop growing too.

Yes, the things we write, and have done and been, will continue to be available long after we ourselves are no longer active. Just as personal memories are preserved in others of our local community, our online records should be preserved and available to anyone who cares to look. Other than simple acknowledgment of the ending of the active record, nothing else should be necessary.

posted October 28, 2007

This is an interesting question, however I sense that nearly everything is covered under current laws regarding wills, estates, executors, etc. In the USA, at least, most privacy laws that apply to the living are no longer applicable once a person is deceased. Also, most all internet related accounts have policies where they delete an account after X (i.e. 90 days) of inactivity. Also, different email providers Gmail, Yahoo, etc. may have different privacy policies, and policies for families of deceased users on how to obtain access to their accounts if they are still active. This becomes an important consideration, especially for active military men and woman. Yahoo has been involved in their fair share of disputes over these matters. See URL below. At a minimum you would think that a person could will "access" as part of the estate to an executor, but given the privacy stances that some providers have taken in the past - it may be a toss-up. It may be that another section of Internet Law needs to be further developed - Actually, the more I think about it the more I smell a new business opportunity in this question.....;-)

Links:

• http://www.news.com/Taking-passwords-to-the-grave/2100-1025_3-6118314.html

posted October 28, 2007

Interesting question, as I have two former colleagues, now deceased, still in my LI network. I can only imagine that their spouses either don't know about their LI activity, don't care, don't have their login credentials, or maybe even want to preserve their profile as a legacy, which I completely respect.

My wife knows all of my activity online, all of my user id's passwords, etc.and knows to delete/terminate it all when I leave this earth.

posted October 28, 2007

Leave them up there foerver, as a cyber memorial. The signal is probably going off into space, already travelling perpetually to untold galaxies.

posted October 28, 2007

Vanity addresses usually require ongoing payments so unless provision is made in the will or unless someone covers the costs most URLs will simply expire and pages will go into the Wayback Engine.

If someone has online property that is worth something they should put it in the will or executors of wills should become better at finding and selling these assets. A blog URL or a forum may be worth money and there are goods and account balances in places like Second Life or WOW.
It would be polite to add a note to LinkedIn, FaceBook and MySpace pages informing friends/network connections that this person has passed away but the security angle is hard, you may need to put your login and password into your will with instructions for someone to leave the message.

Fantasy author Robert Jordan's blog had a very good approach: a message from his cousin that he had passed away, a message from a fan who was invited to the funeral with a couple of the speaches at the funeral and pictures of mementos, a message from his wife thanking people for their thoughts and directing them to a cancer research charity.

Links:

• http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=95

posted October 28, 2007

Very interesting question.
Makes me wonder of all my contacts that I have lost contact with, without any real reason or explanation. I hope they are alive and well.

//Antonio

posted October 28, 2007

Definitely a relevant question for anyone who has an online presence. There should be an automatic archival process for accounts or profiles that have been inactive for a certain period. Whatever information that the deceased had published would remain archived and as part of our human history. It needs to be, in order to preserve the humanity of our society.

I would not mind if my descendants find out about who I was after my passing based on the records I left in the online world. In the end, what defines who we are? If we don't have memories, we are no one. We also continue to 'live on' as memories in others.

posted October 28, 2007

Nothing personal, but I hate terms like "should" as if there is some centrally controlled body which determines how things "should" go. That is the beauty of the Internet, we don't need no command and control hierarchy to run things - only individuals.
That aside, if one is dead, one no longer logs into their account thus the account is inactive. HOWEVER, under the new paradigm, that profile/account is still a property which is content and may add revenue to the network in question. (There are still AdSense ads running for instance). To remove that user due to inactivity, the network loses content. Content generally pays for itself and thus the network is enriched.
Besides, if the user, now deceased, becomes famous, albeit posthumously, we know have a "mile marker" from their life continuing to live on at LinkedIn, Facebook, MyBlogLog, etc.
That is a cool concept to me and hardly morbid.

posted October 28, 2007

At least for the short term, the reality is that most sites won't even become aware that such a thing has occurred. (With the exception of sites that require some form of payment.)

There's already so-called "ghost sites" on the 'net. Those sites that suffer from link rot due to neglect or... possibly because the owner is gone from the world. Now we'll have ghost profiles as well. With the exception of paid accounts, these will likely be preserved for quite some time. (Until or unless sites prune based on things like bounced Emails or whenever. And even that may take a long time. Especially given that some sites - in order to bump up their membership numbers - often couldn't care less about how many are 'active' members for the purposes of their marketing literature.)

In the end - pun intended - those who care would leave some instructions including passwords as part of their wills. Obviously, most are unlikely to do this until quite awhile into the future.

posted October 28, 2007

A question which made me think a lot. A rule can be to disable/delete/archive any email/social network/IM profile after non-use of 1 year. Doesn't that seem quite reasonable?

posted October 28, 2007

Seems like I just heard a story on the news about how a daughter was able to learn a lot about her mother from her online community at ebay. I say leave everything be for a while - maybe someone will come up with a business idea to memorialize profiles on these services, but as far as the rest goes, why remove comments or threads?

posted October 28, 2007

In a perfect world, all of our profiles, blogs and random sites would be shut down as are our financial records and credit cards, upon our death.

In this same perfect world, our estate would be required to post a moratorium on each of our sites, informing our readers and virtual contacts of our passing.

As for archiving, a separate marketplace could be established for the repository of such ramblings and intellectual thought processes, not that much of that takes place here in this virtual society, for future generations to review and ponder over in their search for understanding of a society that has long passed on.

posted October 28, 2007

I am not a lawyer, and it appears that there are a host of legal issues involved. I'll speak to some of the issues that are involved in information systems

If the messages and files reside on a server that the deceased owned and controlled, the solution is easy - if the deceased left behind a list of passwords and user IDs, and the server is accessible.

If the data resides on a third party's information system, it gets interesting.

The Internet Archive can scrape and save the previous states of web sites, but it's still quite limited. The archive might not save a site at all if that site has few users. The archive seems to work well with static pages. I've asked the archive to stop scraping my main web site, for example - check http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://billso.com/

Yahoo won't release a deceased user's account to the next of kin, as far as I know. I've posted a link to a 2005 follow up - Yahoo did release the emails in question, following a court order.

Some online services deactivate accounts after a long period of inactivity. It's a bad idea to allow new users to grab those old user IDs, however, as the email address or URL may still be listed on the Internet along with the deceased's information.

There are sites like MyDeathSpace.com that archive the profiles of deceased MySpace users. It's independent of MySpace.com

MySpace and Facebook profiles sometimes fill up with tributes to the deceased. Facebook changed its policy - these profiles are now placed in a "memorialization state". Next of kin can make requests to Facebook on a case-by-case basis. See the USA Today article.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2007-05-08-facebook-vatech_N.htm?csp=34

Links:

• http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39129837,00.htm
• http://MyDeathSpace.com
• http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2007-05-08-facebook-vate...

posted October 28, 2007

Just the way all web2.0 sites ask DOB they need to have a DOD which may be webmaster/admin controlled and once a DOD has been entered a condolence book should open and his account can remain for the generation to come to read.
rajeev.vaid@gmail.com
I will accept all invitations to connect.
http://rajeevvaid.com
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
~ Yogi Berra

posted October 28, 2007

Maintain the profile and mark it as deceased. Move to an archive as appropriate to maintain performance on current records but allow a wider search if necessary.

Regards

Brian MacLeod

posted October 28, 2007

Hi Kevin,
I think it depends on the individual. A friend knew that he was dying of cancer. At the time, he was corresponding with numerous individuals through his blog. Many people who corresponded with him found the blog to be inspiring. He decided that he wanted the blog kept on line. After he died, his wife posted on the blog that he had passed and she has kept it on line as it was, except for her post. This was his wish. Others might make a different choice, assuming they know they have a fatal illness.
All the best,
Josephine Ferraro, LCSW

posted October 29, 2007

Mr. Lee,

Rather than being morbid, you ask a very poignant question.

If I am dead and my connections don't know it, then I was already dead when I was alive I guess - since no one knew me at that time either.

If I do not have INTERaction with my connections; if I do not make an impression on my contacts; indeed, if I think so little of my contacts that I make no impact at all, what reason do I have to expect to be remembered much less mourned? I will pass on as I lived.

There is a great misimpression that the Internet brings everyone together when, in reality, it segregates us even further in the long run. I speak from my professional and personal experience on this matter. A great deal of misunderstanding about what constitutes a relationship or a "connection" is revealed from your question, as well as the means we use to put weight on connectors.

Sincerely,
Richard Whipple

Links:

• http://www.CrowCommunications.Com

Richard A. also suggests these experts on this topic:

• Laura R.
• Elizabeth H.
• Larissa G.

posted October 29, 2007

Excellent question and people should think about it.

The best thing to do is to read the TOS agreement before you start using a blogging service. Don't expect them to do anything extraordinary for you, especially if they have a million users. They'll probably expire the account out after a while. I know livejournal just purged a bunch of dormant accounts not too long ago.

I've been on the WELL since 1985 and a lot of people have died over the years. Because it is small and people have actually met each other, the treatment depends on the person. A spouse may have the password and the staff would let the spouse close things up (returning email to correspondents). In other cases, the account is locked and the userid "retired". Some have memorial web pages.

Large sites don't afford that, so, again, read the TOS and remember that if you don't want it on the home page of the New York Times or featured during your presidential campaign, don't put it on the internet in the first place.

posted October 29, 2007

First of all, how does a person's profile "know" that someone passed away? in German slang, an inactive profile is also called something like a "data corpse" this emphasizes pretty much a problem that does not seem to be that new as it might seems the profile might be "dead", but very often we don't know about what happened to its owner.
Banks for instance, since ages know the problem of "dormant accounts" Someone might pass away, move and forget his assets. In the end, when someone passes away his rightful heirs usually can claim the assets as long as they know about them. Similarily an heir might open a deceased person's snail mail.
Now, what happens to one's online "assets" seems to lead to the next question, should there be a legal framework to govern operators of online services to grant access to heirs of deceased members? And to what extent existing law can be applied?
About the more specific case for networking platforms, just like real world connections usually exist beyond someone's death, second degree connections of networking platform usually persist regardless of the activity of the intermediary profile.

posted October 29, 2007

Heaven forbid! In the ideal world all that stuff would be documented but I doubt very much it is. Only a couple of weeks ago two of my team asked me what would happen to the network I own if something happened to me? Something I have to think seriously about. But then what about the other stuff? I expect it would fade gradually with disuse, i.e. wouldn't be as prominent in the search engines as the profiles become stagnant over time.

posted October 29, 2007

I know of at least two profiles of colleagues that have passed away that are still live on LinkedIn. With free services, I guess they stay live for ever as I imagine it is even more difficult to get them removed than removing a connection. Close family hardly ever undertake such tasks.

posted October 29, 2007

A close friend of mine died just under a year ago at the age of 26 in climbing accident.

His fiancé used his MySpace and Facebook account to collect some really touching sentiments from his friends and family about him and their experience of him.

I think it is a really great way to celebrate someone’s life. You can look through his history and see messages he sent to friends to arrange a quick pint after work. Then as you scroll down and start to read the messages sent to him after he died you get an even greater sense of who the guy was. It was also a great way for his parents to see how loved there was son, in fact I am sure it was vital in helping them to deal with the grief.

I would like to be remembered in the same way. Maybe the internet has brought the much sought after answer on how to live forever?

posted October 29, 2007

What a great question. Should each person not be asked upon joining or creating a profile a) if they wish their profiles to remain despite no longer gracing the planet and b) to appoint a guardian or virtual executor who would look after their virtual estate?

Is there a business model for collating, archiving and editing with certain permissions profiles of persons who are no longer with us?

Wikicemetary?

Cheers,
JD

posted October 29, 2007

Free accounts could go on forever, as long as the email address stay active.
Paid accounts would close when the payments stop....

OR

Like Timothy Leary, live on in cyber space forever.

posted October 29, 2007