Re: Death and Berevement

Hi,

This issue is feature that an ID provider, who is dedicated to take care of your 
stuff and who has access to it, is the right entity to provide.
In general and as said, users need reach control over their content. If a 
service is given access to content that is hosted by the user's IDP, this access 
must be revokeable if the user changes his mind. It's a life cycle of access 
that ends somewhen. To me it is straight forward for the IDP to ask the user 
what should happen to his content when he dies. Who cares if an account is not 
deleted? It's the party pics that must go offline!
There is another aspect at the end of content's lifecycle that's strongly 
related to the issue of a user passing away: forgetting. Our brains have a 
feature to forget outdated stuff to free memory.

»And because we forget, all the embarassing things we did 10 years ago, are 
forgotten. We are different beings now and thus, this information is outdated. 
One can also understand this brain feature as a natural filter. But I am no 
biologist. ;)
However, this might be approached technically, or by a licence which expires 
automatically or on demand. Imagine a CC-by-1week. I am no expert in the 
licences domain. Is there something appropriate or something close?«
(commented on DanBri's http://danbri.org/words/2009/07/23/423 Dan, this is still 
awaiting moderation?)

Cheers,
Alex

Tim Anglade wrote:
> Interesting (if slightly morbid) point.
> 
> The issue is of definite interest nonetheless, if only because of the 
> varying industry practices on the subject.
> 
> Currently, I'm only aware of two major services who take this 
> eventuality into account:
> * Facebook urges you to “memorialize” the deceased's page [1]. 
> Apparently, if you can *prove* you're the next of kin, they'll let you 
> delete the account [2];
> * MySpace lets you delete it permanently [3].
> 
> Le 26 juil. 09 à 21:39, Phil Archer a écrit :
> 
>> What I can't work out is whether this is something that might be part 
>> of a future standardisation track - or simply a commercial opportunity 
>> for someone. In which case, why the heck am I sending this to a public 
>> list?  ;-)
> 
> Another good call. Considering how Americans are signing up for id-theft 
> protection and the like, I could see a smallish industry of 
> e-undertakers cropping up. Something like a nominal or sub-$10 yearly 
> fee in exchange for a prompt removal (or advantageous e-embalming) of 
> your accounts.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Tim
> 
> [1] http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased
> [2] http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/090224-113022
> [3] http://faq.myspace.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/369/kw/dead/r_id/100061
> 
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-- 
Alexander Korth
www.twitter.com/alexkorth

Received on Monday, 27 July 2009 09:49:34 UTC