The New York Times ran an article on May 20th with some good legal insight into the issues surrounding death online. We’ve talked about the need for a “digital executor” before, but Patricia H. Char, a lawyer with K&L Gates in Seattle, warns that isn’t enough. Without a durable power of attorney document your executor […]
Yesterday John and I sat down to discuss some of the issues surrounding the digital afterlife. At the end of our conversation we recorded the first installment of our podcast series. I hope you enjoy the podcast. The Digital Afterlife: An Interview with John Romano
At the end of most wedding vows is the line “til death do us part.” Death is the end of your physical life, but if your digital existence continues, when does your online marriage end? Can the relationship between two online personas continue even if the people behind them change? What if one partner is […]
How many domain names do you have registered? I can think of at least five between mine and others I manage. If you were to pass before the registration expired, who would renew them? Remember that domain names aren’t property and you can’t really put them in your will. As I see it, and I’m […]
Here’s some blog love that we received shortly after our idea hit the Panel Picker back in August. From Chris Snyder at Wired … And how are they pimping up their panels? Social media of course. Techies from across the country are reaching out in Tweets to get votes as well as in Facebook groups. […]
You probably remember my previous posts about Dead Man’s Switch and the e-mails I’ve received from the service. Here’s a follow-up to the last e-mail. Subject: Dead Man’s Switch is REALLY worried about you Hi, Are you okay? You haven’t answered our last two emails. If you don’t answer this, your emails will be sent […]
You probably remember my previous posts about Dead Man’s Switch and the e-mails I’ve received from the service. Here’s a follow-up to the last e-mail. It seems that I didn’t successfully confirm my continued existence, so here’s my next notification: Subject: Dead Man’s Switch is worried about you Message: Hey there, where have you been? […]
A while back I posted about www.deadmansswitch.net. Here’s the first e-mail they sent me to confirm that I’m still alive. I like how it’s doesn’t assume that I’m alive, but I was hoping that it would be something more formal. In either case it’s still kind of disturbing. Hello you, this is your plain old […]
When the gang here at Capstrat set out to brainstorm some ideas for SXSW 2009, we talked about what “digital will” service might look like. We decided that the basic model would allow a user to write e-mail messages and they would be sent on their behalf posthumously. The user would be prompted to check […]
I set out to investigate what might happen to my online identity if I were to pass away. Here’s what a few online services say about the deceased in their terms of service. Facebook “When we are notified that a user has died, we will generally, but are not obligated to, keep the user’s account […]
