Technology Nomad

In today's online World thinking about what happens to one's online accounts, which to many is a big chunk of their World, after their death might be morbid. Perhaps even a tad superstitious and pessimistic. Unfortunately, it's a necessary evil.

Now I wanted to write about the topic, but after doing a bit of research (as I always do for an article) revealed that blog site MakeUseOf covered it, and covered it quite well. According to the article, email services like Hotmail and Gmail allow next of kin to access accounts of deceased individuals as long as the family can provide proof of death. My guess is that anonymous accounts, where incomplete or incorrect information is provided, mean that the accounts get locked over time due to lack of usage. Whereas other services, like MySpace, will simply delete the account upon request. The infamous Facebook will also delete an account if asked, but they also go out of their way and turn the user's page into a memorial one, if the family so wishes. I highly recommend reading the MakeUseOf article as it covers quite a bit.