Well, One day, you’re going to die. And when you do, what will happen to your online presence like email account and social media profile? Your presence in social media maybe will serve as your very first memorial. Here are some of the policies :
- Hotmail
- Gmail
- Yahoo!
Hotmail has a policy of deleting email accounts if they are not touched for 270 days. If you die, your next of kin would be able to access your account within that period by proving their identity and supplying a death certificate.
A spokesperson said: “Microsoft’s policy allows next of kin to gain access to the content of the account of the deceased upon proving their own identity and relationship. Hotmail does not have an option to specify in advance that they do not want the contents of their email accessed by a next of kin.”
Gmail will also allow the next of kin or executor of estate to apply for access to a deceased user’s email account. However, they need more identification than Hotmail. The person would have to prove their own identity and supply a death certificate as well as proof of an email conversation between them and the deceased.
If the deceased user was underage, the next of kin would also have to provide a copy of their birth certificate.
Gmail does not delete the deceased user’s account, but says the next of kin could choose to do so after gaining access to it.
Yahoo! has the strictest policy when it comes to the data of deceased users. The company will let the user’s next of kin ask for the account to be closed, but will not give them access to it. It says users who want their emails to be inherited should make arrangements in their will.
A spokesperson said: “The commitment Yahoo! makes to every person who signs up for a Yahoo! Mail account is to treat their email as a private communication and to treat the content of their messages as confidential.”
“Internet users who want to be sure their email and other online accounts are accessible to their legal heirs may want to work with their attorneys to plan an offline process for such access as part of their estate planning process.”
More than any other service, Facebook will be the most important fixture in your digital mausoleum. I mean, it’s a basically a catch-all for your memories, with timestamped comments, loads of personal info, and pictures. It’s the first place acquaintances look after someone dies, and the first place the press will look if your death was particularly public or tragic.
And Facebook knows this. They’ve got a healthy help section for the bereaved, which lays out what how one can deal with a dead profile. Here are the options:
• Report an account to be memorialized: Accounts can be turned into digital insta-memorials. This is a service Facebook actually offers:
Please report this information… so that we can memorialize this person’s account. Memorializing the account removes certain more sensitive information like status updates and restricts profile access to confirmed friends only.
This is a safe option, since it gives the deceased a certain degree of privacy, without eliminating their memory forever. As depressing as it may sound, there’s a form you can fill out for this.
• Take the account down: From the memorialization FAQ:
We do honor requests from close family members to close the account completely.
If you make a special request (again through the form) you can have the account removed completely. You’ve pretty much gotta be someone’s parent or spouse for this one, though.
• Sue for access: Need to see your family member’s Facebook profile, for closure? This treads well into some gray area, but it turns out, you can sort of do this. Sometimes. From Legacy Locker:
If your family is intent on gaining access to your Facebook account, they’ll have to resort to legal action against Facebook. Not surprisingly, this is becoming increasingly more common…
The deceased was a young adult who had been hit by a drunk driver while on his motorcycle. The mother was aware that her son was a prolific Facebook user and wanted access as part of the grieving process. She wanted the ability to communicate with his friends and maintain the connection to her son. His virtual self was one of the key things she had left to remember him by.
The woman had access to her son’s account, and it was only when Facebook realized the boy was dead that they revoked it. She sued to get it back, and eventually:
Facebook provided the parents an electronic snapshot of their son’s Facebook page to see everything contained within it. This included all messages, wall postings and photographs. Facebook also permitted ongoing access to the public portion of the page. This is akin to the view that any “friend” would have of the page.
It’s not a click-box choice, but it’s an option.
• Leave your login info behind: Write yourself a will, of sorts! Entrust a family member or spouse with your login info and instruction as to what to do with your profile. It might make for an awkward conversation now, but it’ll be worth it.
Just as Facebook allows users to request that an account be deleted or memorialized when a friend or loved one has passed on, Twitter users can now get in touch with administrators at the company to either completely delete the account or obtain a permanent backup of the deceased user’s public tweets.
Accounts of deceased users will no longer appear in the “Who to Follow” suggestions box. Currently, the accounts of deceased users look exactly the same as those of living users and can be followed and listed.
Both Twitter and Facebook ask that the deceased user’s surviving family members submit a link to an obituary, along with information about their relationship to the deceased, before the account is deleted or backed up.
Twitter also advises, “Please note that we cannot allow access to the account or disclose other non-public information regarding the account.” Family members or friends who wish to post last messages to the account must obtain the login credentials or other means of access to the account (such as through the deceased’s mobile phone) for themselves.
You can read more about the policy at the Twitter help page.
*image credit to 9gag.com and gizmodo.com
** some info credit to News, Gizmodo, and Mashable.
