Social networking sites show life after death

EVERYONE FACES DEATH eventually – but not if you’re online apparently.

On social networking sites, if someone dies, their profile remains online, leaving the deceased’s profile open to abusive comment and indecent photographs, along with the infamous application “poke me”.

Research by The Guardian found that in almost every case the deceased’s profile remained online after they’ve left Earth.

The biggest social network site MySpace said it "never deletes a profile for inactivity…however if a family requests that a profile be removed we would honour their request and remove the profile in question."

LiveJournal has a special memorial status which freezes the profile - but leaves it there for friends and family to enjoy if they wish, blocking anyone else from leaving anything unacceptable.

Although these are all good methods, one thing that may be of use in these situations, is the introduction of OpenID, as once one site is notified of a death, the other sites to which the deceased belonged should be informed almost at once.

Executive director of OpenID, Bill Washburn, told teh Guardian such a scheme would depend on the co-operation of each individual site. His concern is that the decision of what should be done with our online lives may not even be ours to make. µ

L'INQ
Guardian