I’ve been thinking about sudden and unexpected deaths. You know, the kind where someone apparently healthy gets a heart attack and dies.
It used to be that the send off was only physical. A person dies, you bury the body, or cremate it. You keep the ashes some place, or you throw it into the sea.
But the Internet has given birth to a virtual life that often loved ones have no access to. The password protected existence, the loose ends that can’t be tied up by the family.
I suppose this blog and the stuff that I host on my own will expire when the subscription on my web host ends. But, if I’d committed to a long term contract, I would still exist online for longer than my physical self.
And what about Facebook? Facebook says you can request to delete your account. A request seems like something I have to ask permission for. And when you request for it, they don’t delete the account. No, they wait at least 2 weeks before they actually delete the stuff. But do they? Nope. After Facebook said they had deleted my account, I tried so setup a new one using the same email address, and Facebook asked me if I wanted to reinstate my old information. It seems the ownership of my life is in Zuckerberg’s hands.
Then there’s all the various photo sites: Photobucket, Picasa, Flickr. And the video sites. And other sites still holding the memories of your life. When does that let go? What if your family doesn’t even know about them to even begin the process of taking the online life away?
Would we even care to erase the virtual life? Would it just exist on and on, in an endless data collection, processed, documented, held for eternity for spiders and crawlers and search engines.
But, yes, I would like someone to please end my virtual existence when I leave the physical world. So where in the world would one find an online undertaker?
put instructions in your will
But who knows my passwords or various accounts? If you put it in your will, someone will know. And you change passwords all the time.