Yahoo Slams New 'Digital Will' Law

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What do you think should happen to your personal digital assets after you die?

What should happen to your personal digital communications—emails, chats, photos and the like—after you die? Should they be treated like physical letters for the purposes of a will? Yahoo doesn’t think so. The company is criticizing new legislation giving executors charged with carrying out the instructions in a person’s will broad access to their online accounts.

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Oh I can't wait until this gets hacked/cracked.
Because writing this stuff down on a piece of paper would be far too inconvenient.
 
On one hand, I agree with Yahoo in that I don't want my private emails and things like that getting out after I die. On the other, it seems silly that I can't give my digital music, games, etc to someone.

I suppose we've accepted the latter already though, it's not like I can gift or sell a song in my iTunes to someone else right now while I'm alive - why would I expect that after death?

Seems like the sort of thing that could work as an opt-in feature. A read-only account password that you can give in a will so your family can get your cloud based pictures or whatever. Strong emphasis on opt-in. I don't want people opening my secured accounts w/o consent just because I'm dead.
 
"Upon my death my first wish is that some third party sign a non-disclosure and wipe my browser history... on second thought, just thermite the hard drive, if hard drives are no longer cheap well I'm sorry chances are the rest of the computer is outdated too so just buy a new one"
 
I don't want people opening my secured accounts w/o consent just because I'm dead.

Why not? You're dead, so what does it matter?
You won't be embarrassed by what anyone finds.

Why? Because you're dead! :p
 
Yahoo has no problem changed their Terms of Service to help themselves at any point, funny how they're screaming when someone is asking them to change it.

I think a simple change in the way we do wills is needed at this point. If you don't want anyone to have access to your stuff when you die, then don't say anything, but if you do, simply add a clause in the will, "When I croak, I want X to have access to my accounts on A, B & C."

Seems like a no brainer to me that everyone could agree on...
 
Yahoo's objection is probably more from the fact their account management seems messed up pretty good. Trying to get a password reset was a bit ridiculous. The funny part was when my 16 character auto generate Upper/Lower case, number, special character including password wasn't good enough for them but my mildly mangled 2 dictionary word password was just fine.
 
Why not? You're dead, so what does it matter?
You won't be embarrassed by what anyone finds.

Why? Because you're dead! :p
For that matter, who cares about the rest of your family and how they may be affected when your spouse or next of kin gets a hold of your private accounts, letting them do as they please. Why do they matter? You won't care what happens. You're dead.
 
Why not? You're dead, so what does it matter?
You won't be embarrassed by what anyone finds.

Why? Because you're dead! :p

True, but the problem is the people you leave behind that you care about. You don't want to mess them up if they find out dad has a few boyfriends in the various states he travels to for work.
Or that you little brother doesn't have the same dad as you and mom is a cheating whore.
Or the reason the family is so poor is because dad kept all his money secret in an off shore account.

or...a million other reason to ruin families. Its not so much about you anymore after you die, but more about the people you leave behind.
 
For that matter, who cares about the rest of your family and how they may be affected when your spouse or next of kin gets a hold of your private accounts, letting them do as they please. Why do they matter? You won't care what happens. You're dead.

Eh, I was more on the side of making an example of keeping the accounts 'hidden' from family members, which is why I also said, "just write it down on a piece of paper."
 
True, but the problem is the people you leave behind that you care about. You don't want to mess them up if they find out dad has a few boyfriends in the various states he travels to for work.
Or that you little brother doesn't have the same dad as you and mom is a cheating whore.
Or the reason the family is so poor is because dad kept all his money secret in an off shore account.

or...a million other reason to ruin families. Its not so much about you anymore after you die, but more about the people you leave behind.

So how about... just not doing any of those things, period.
In fact, if one is going to do all of those things, why even have a family at all?

That individual failed long before they died.
 
All digital accounts should have a succession plan in case of your death and that users should have an ultimate right to be forgotten (aka DELETED PERMANENTLY) at any time if they wish it.
 
All digital accounts should have a succession plan in case of your death and that users should have an ultimate right to be forgotten (aka DELETED PERMANENTLY) at any time if they wish it.

All online accounts that are not financially based or holding assets should automatically delete after a period of 24 months of inactivity. That is simple and not exactly rocket science for any online institution to implement. I would even be willing to take the notion of the account can be "archived" for use by the institution but the data can no longer be public. This way the history of data is preserved for future use but allows people to slowly "fade away" as in real life.
 
I believe that everyone have their rights to privacy even after death. Just because someone is dead, it doesn't mean we're entitled to all their dirty little secret.
 
Don't see why digital isn't like anything else. I support this. If you don't want people looking at it, give your lawyer access to the accounts and instructions to delete everything in the event of your death.

Given that most people barely plan out what to do with their money, house, etc, doubtful they'll do anything with their e-mail.
 
I've got another twist. I was listed as killed in action, paramedics did not bother and check for a pulse, it was the MD who realized it, at which point things got confusing, but the important thing is I was not dead yet with this new law all of my digital files would have been deleted or turned over to someone... at that point I was in the military and some of the stuff I had digitally was classified sensitive or higher, other files would have caused major issues since I had naked piks of girls that I'm sure as hell they would not want some stranger looking at or worse their parents.
 
I've got another twist. I was listed as killed in action, paramedics did not bother and check for a pulse, it was the MD who realized it, at which point things got confusing, but the important thing is I was not dead yet with this new law all of my digital files would have been deleted or turned over to someone.

This is incorrect. The administrator of the estate gets access. In order to become administrator of the estate, you have to file with the court, provide a death certificate, and start the probate process before an administrator is ever even granted any power to act for the estate. In my state, you can't even file the first thing to get those papers until five days after death, so you'd have to have been dead for five days, at which point the medical folks' mistake about your death would have had time to turn into actual death, or you'd have been identified as not dead.
 
Why not? You're dead, so what does it matter?
You won't be embarrassed by what anyone finds.

Why? Because you're dead! :p

Eh, I feel like that's basically the same argument as "If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't be afraid of the NSA."
 
IMO Yahoo needs to explain what practical differences exist between digital correspondence and other forms. They appear to be claiming that the jobs of thousands of estate executors should be made either far more complicated or altogether impossible, simply because the company insists on deleting user data on receipt of a death certificate. Hey Yahoo, be like Facebook and never delete anything, even when users want it deleted and believe it's deleted.
 
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