Lately, there has been a lot of concern over what happens to one’s emails and social networking profiles after one’s passing. Taking a step in favour of your morbidity, Google has launched the Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to control what happens to your Google accounts after you pass away.
The tool, announced in a Public Policy Blog post entitled ‘Plan your digital afterlife with Inactive Account Manager,’ gives the user several ways to tackle the issue of wiping their Google Digital Footprint. The first involves sending a text message to a phone number after a set amount of time has passed. You can select up to ten contacts who will receive your Google account log-in information after a long amount of time has passed from your last log-in.
If giving away your account information gets you queasy even in the afterlife, then there is always the “self-destruct” option. If your account hasn’t seen you logging in for a considerable amount of time, then Google will just delete your entire account completely. No more Google Circles, no more contacts, all those incriminating emails and everything else, gone!
An individual’s online presence after death has become quite a topic of concern lately. While Google has been taking a stance on putting your digital life to a halt after your real one has ended, there’s another company called LiveOn, which promises to keep your Twitter going even in your afterlife. The guys at LiveOn will monitor and analyse your patterns of social interactions and once you kick it, the company would keep your Twitter account live and continue tweeting on your behalf.
So there, now, you can decide what happens to your social presence online one you’re dead. We recommend the clean wipe option over the “send information to trusted contact” simply because, well, would you want others to see the Pandora’s Box that is your mailbox?
