When you're dead, who deletes your blog?

Someone I know died yesterday. He was 41. Amid all the sadness, the usual arrangements would have been made: put the death notice in the Independent, contact his close friends, cancel his bills, wind up his affairs.

This got me thinking: what happens to a person's digital existence?

If I died today, it'd be some task trying to cancel all of my digital stuff. I have blogs, photo accounts, video accounts, social networking accounts, all manner of things online. How in hell would my next of kin wind those up?

I'll give you an actual example. Two and a half years ago, a respected Irish IT journalist called David Stewart died of cancer. He maintained a blog called Science Friction. That blog is still up there. In fact, the last entry was posted two weeks before his death, starting: "Not all good I'm afraid." It's a little macabre, to say the least.

In my own life, half of my friends (and especially those overseas) now keep in touch mainly through e-mail or social networking sites. If they heard nothing back, they may not assume anything had happened to me. And many would not know how to contact any of my family to find out whether anything had happened.

I suspect that as people pass away, the internet will become more and more littered with ghostly websites created by people who are no longer on this earth.

Comments

[Aaron]

Sorry to hear about that Adrian.

The question of "What happens online when you die?" is a good one. The issue of family gaining access to, for example, your email is a tough one as Google or Yahoo, for example, would be loath to hand out the access.

I think it's something that will evolve over time - right now, as a percentage of web users, not that many are dead or dying. The majority of people on the web aren't retired yet.

Over time I'm sure services will evolve - for example, into systems like blogs and email - that will, for example, allow you to nominate a person who can have access, or a way for people to gain access bypassing the usual privacy stuff.

Perhaps there will be a - public or private - central service that will act as an internet deaths registry, in whatever way - announce that this person, associated with this email address, blog etc, has died.

The mechanics of it remain unclear, but I can't see it not evolving - particularly if there's a dime to be made in the process (hey, even undertaking is a business.)

When you die there's a process for wrapping up your affairs with the state, and a whole bunch of other things. I'd say one will evolve with the net.

[PT]

Interesting related article here about your passwords and family access to accounts such as your email etc.

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

[Acai berry]

I have never thought about such a situation.But this will i think happen to everybody.Then definitely the internet will become more and more littered with ghostly websites.