For whom the bell tolls

This is going to be a fairly morbid post.

What happens in cyberspace when we people die?

From the moment I first set up my hotmail account (circa 1994-5) I wondered what would happen if something happened to me. How long would the hotmail account keep receiving emails if I never logged in to read them?

How long is our data held on to?

Let me explain with an example:
Also about 9-10 years ago I made an Amazon purchase. I went back again recently and it still knew me… it new what books I had purchased, and it gave me recommendations based on what I had purchased.

“in the wild” is a term used for viruses, to indicate that they are out there and probably never going to be completely eradicated – at least not for many decades. That’s how I feel about my information.

But what happens when someone dies?

There’s nobody to update their Facebook page. There’s nobody to add details to the My Space. But do the pages go down? Do they get deleted after a period of inactivity?

How many pages have you put your details down on? The list is almost as long as the number of web sites you visit. Everything from little Wikipedea entries, blogs,

How long do you think they hold on to it? I have a feeling that many sites keep your information indefinitely, with no specific plans to delete. Even “pages” that go down due to inactivity are probably stored somewhere.

I wonder how many blogs that just stop, how many Facebook pages that go without being updated, how many customers who haven’t returned in a while never will.

What would we do about that? We could try to put in some type of “deceased” state, that was propagated/shared between sites. But that would be open to error and abuse (apparently it is hard enough to convince banks you aren’t dead when they make a mistake). Inactivity wouldn’t work either – what’s stopping someone just not making a purchase/update in 20 years and then coming back. Wouldn’t we want to market to that customer as effectively as we possibly could?

As more people get “on the net”, and as more people age and die “on the net”, I can see this issue growing more and more – but I’ve never heard anyone discuss it.