Life increasingly takes place on the Internet. Modern users interact on many different channels simultaneously – on Twitter, Facebook and Xing or by sending e-mails. But what happens to user profiles when their owners die in real life? In the past three years several agencies have discovered a niche in the market and developed an innovative business idea: they manage the ‘inheritance’ of social networks and other online memberships of late Internet users. Is it justified to call this approach impious? Or is this just a clever business idea which was born out of the current demands of online communication?

Online will settles affairs of defunct person
The German online service www.mein-letzter-internet-wille.de offers its clients to administer their user profiles once they have passed away and to end existing memberships. If desired the agency will send out an e-mail to inform friends and acquaintances that the sender has died. The US American service provider vitallock.com takes care of managing account data and passing them on to the bereaved. It does not come as a big surprise that the mere existence of such agencies is eyed suspiciously. In addition, leaving access data to strangers during one’s lifetime makes many people feel uneasy.

The Internet never forgets
User profiles remain active even after the death of the person who has originally opened the account. Uploaded pictures and videos will continue to be available, too, conveying the impression that the user ‘is still there’. Coming across the Internet presence of a loved person who has just passed away is an additional burden for mourners. Since the relevance of the Internet has been continuously increasing over the last years, it only seems logical to deal with this issue.

We communicate on different platforms, usually have more than just one e-mail account, buy and sell things online. On top of that, there are many accounts which list our financial activities. All these services illustrate our omnipresence on the Internet. Bearing these facts in mind, it may well be an advantage to make sure that there will be someone to take care of one’s online affairs and to end one’s Internet presence when you are gone in real life, too.

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