My Digital FootPrint

I have written a number of times on dealing with death and the relationship to your digital footprint Rule 31 from my 31 new social rules for living in a digital age is about finding someone you trust to ensure that your digital estate can be managed.  Digital Estate Planning appears to be growing    AssetLock.net ,  Legacy Locker ,  Deathswitch.com  and My Webwill   aim to address the issues raised  by enabling online users to securely store online information like logins and passwords to be passed on to relations after death - however you need to tell someone and  Excel does work as a cheap alternative. On a related but different slant there is E-Tomb which is a solar powered tomb with bluetooth to enable relatives to visit your online profiles and memories after you passed away.

Our granddad’s had 1 profession for life Our dad’s could have had 1 job for 50 years We are likely to have had 7 jobs over 50 years Our kids will need 7 jobs at the same time and will probably not make 50 years Our grandkids need us to start writing their applications now

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/technology/18death.html This is a difficult topic, how do we deal with accounts of users who die.  Who’s owns their IPR, should you login and delete the account.  I have written serval times about legacy and death, but as I am writing some ‘new’ social rules for our digital age and this one is very hard and any ideas would be welcome.  

  Changing name may be only way to escape previous online activity reports Carrie-Ann Skinner of PC Advisor “Young web users may be need to change their names when they become adults in a bid to distance themselves from content previously posted online about them” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time." "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society. I'm not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things." Schmidt also told the newspaper the search engine is "trying to figure out what the future of search is". "I mean that in a positive way. We're still happy to be in search, believe me. But one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type." He says that at present "we know roughly who you are,

  Changing name may be only way to escape previous online activity reports Carrie-Ann Skinner of PC Advisor “Young web users may be need to change their names when they become adults in a bid to distance themselves from content previously posted online about them” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time." "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society. I'm not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things." Schmidt also told the newspaper the search engine is "trying to figure out what the future of search is". "I mean that in a positive way. We're still happy to be in search, believe me. But one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type." He says that at present "we know roughly who you are,

  Changing name may be only way to escape previous online activity reports Carrie-Ann Skinner of PC Advisor “Young web users may be need to change their names when they become adults in a bid to distance themselves from content previously posted online about them” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time." "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society. I'm not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things." Schmidt also told the newspaper the search engine is "trying to figure out what the future of search is". "I mean that in a positive way. We're still happy to be in search, believe me. But one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type." He says that at present "we know roughly who you are,

  Changing name may be only way to escape previous online activity reports Carrie-Ann Skinner of PC Advisor “Young web users may be need to change their names when they become adults in a bid to distance themselves from content previously posted online about them” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time." "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society. I'm not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things." Schmidt also told the newspaper the search engine is "trying to figure out what the future of search is". "I mean that in a positive way. We're still happy to be in search, believe me. But one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type." He says that at present "we know roughly who you are,

Although we produce and author digital content, we do not seem to have complete ownership of it and this problem of lack of ownership occurs at several points when we want to, or someone else needs to, gain access or control over it, these being abuse, historic and death. Abuse – when our information/ ID is stolen or taken out of context History – it doesn’t become history, it remains current but we need it to fade and become less relevant (prevalent) Death – gaining control to be able to switch off and archive.

Tending to Your Digital Remains is a dead interesting post on a topic I have asked the same question about – what happens when you die. First you need to make sure you hand on the keys (passwords) At least three companies — AssetLock.net , Legacy Locker , and the charmingly named Deathswitch.com — have arisen to keep customers’ passwords, usernames, final messages, and so on in a virtual safe-deposit box. After you’re gone, these companies carry out last wishes, alert friends, give account access to various designated beneficiaries, and generally parse out and pass on your online assets. Digital remains that are not bequeathed to an inheritor are incinerated, closing the book on PayPal accounts, profiles, even alternate identities ( especially alternate identities: You don’t want your mother knowing about, or worse, playing, the wife-swapping giant badger you became in Second Life). A second post on the same topic is Logging out after snuffing out  - which is much more about what

Tending to Your Digital Remains is a dead interesting post on a topic I have asked the same question about – what happens when you die. First you need to make sure you hand on the keys (passwords) At least three companies — AssetLock.net , Legacy Locker , and the charmingly named Deathswitch.com — have arisen to keep customers’ passwords, usernames, final messages, and so on in a virtual safe-deposit box. After you’re gone, these companies carry out last wishes, alert friends, give account access to various designated beneficiaries, and generally parse out and pass on your online assets. Digital remains that are not bequeathed to an inheritor are incinerated, closing the book on PayPal accounts, profiles, even alternate identities ( especially alternate identities: You don’t want your mother knowing about, or worse, playing, the wife-swapping giant badger you became in Second Life). A second post on the same topic is Logging out after snuffing out  - which is much more about what