Google tool to enable what to do with emails after death

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HOUSTON, APR 12: Are you worried who will read some of your very personal and saved emails or conversation after you are dead ? Stop worries as help is on the way.

Finally Google has found a way by launching inactive account manager page that can be used as a “Digital Will”.

Google is asking people what they want to happen to their digital photos, documents and other virtual belongings after they die or become incapacitated.

An “Inactive Account Manager” can be used to direct Google to pass on data from online venues such as Google Drive, Gmail, YouTube, or social network Google+ to particular people, or be deleted after being dormant for too long.

In a message at an account settings page, Google gives people the option of sharing their data with a trusted friend or family member, or having their account deleted.

Google lets people specify how long to wait before taking action, and the California—based internet giant will send account holders email or text message reminders before “timeout” periods are ended.

In setting up the Google Inactive Account Manager, users will be able to select a length of time the account must be inactive before the alert goes out. Then, up to ten trusted individuals will receive a customised information on how to proceed or handle the account.

Finally, Google gives users the option to effectively “burn” their account, wiping all materials from all Google properties — including public Youtube videos, Google+ profiles and Google Voice extensions.

Users can choose 3, 6, 9, or 12 months as the timeout period and Google will send a notification to the secondary email address one month before the period is set to expire.

If that time passes, any trusted contacts will receive a personal email explaining that said individual had left them the data, including instructions on how to download it.

The set—up page reads: “What should happen to your photos, emails and documents when you stop using your account? Google puts you in control.

“You might want your data to be shared with a trusted friend or family member, or you might want your account to be deleted entirely. There are many situations that might prevent you from accessing or using your Google account. Whatever the reason, we give you the option of deciding what happens to your data.

“Using Inactive Account Manager, you can decide if and when your account is treated as inactive, what happens with your data and who is notified.”

Dealing with digital identities after someone has gone dead or missing is an interesting and still—developing problem on various platforms.

The Inactive Account Manager is a simplified version of the old process for accessing or shutting down an account, which required both birth and death notices from a family member.

Other platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, still require a bit of finagling to secure a loved one’s account after he or she dies, but the Inactive Account Manager could provide plenty of information and act as a “digital will” with minimal set—up.

Report by : PTI

Google’s new Inactive Account Manager lets users plan for digital afterlife

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Worried about what will happen to your digital presence and data after your death? Well, so is Google and the company has now unveiled a service designed to manage the accounts of people after their time in the world ends.

Called the Inactive Account Manager, the service offers users of Gmail, Drive, Google+, Picasa and other Google services a template which can be filled up with details of what should happen in the event you die or become inactive for a specified period of time.

"Not many of us like thinking about death — especially our own," Product Manager Andreas Tuerk wrote in a blog post. "But making plans for what happens after you're gone is really important for the people you leave behind. So today, we're launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account."

Now, also managing your afterlife

The Inactive Account Manager can be found in your account settings page and you can choose whether to have your data erased after your death or alternatively, you can make it available to pre-specified trusted contacts. The settings also let you choose when Google deletes your data. Users can ask Google to erase data if the account is inactive for three, six, nine or 12 months.

For Google, the Inactive Account Manager is a way to free up space on their servers without breaking a trust agreement with their users. It's also a way to address privacy and security concerns of people who would be worried about their private photos, videos and messages that could leak out to the world after their death.

And if some casual Google users who have signed up for the Inactive Account Manager service are having second thoughts about their account being erased, then they can put a stop it before it’s too late. Before the deletion of the data, Google will notify account holders via text message and email to a designated address.

“We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife — in a way that protects your privacy and security — and make life easier for your loved ones after you’re gone,” Tuerk added.

Report by : Nikhil Subramaniam

6 Things to Do Before You Delete Your Facebook Account

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If you're serious this time about deleting your Facebook account, escaping the social networking giant can be a lot more complicated than you would think. There are necessary steps you should take before pressing that delete account button.

Remember, deleting your account is very different from deactivating your account. You can deactivate your account at any point, and when you want to return everything is as you left it. While your account is deactivated, people on Facebook will not be able to search for you, but some information like messages you've sent may still be visible to others.

If you permanently delete your account, you will not be able to regain access to your account again, ever. Most personally identifiable information is removed from the Facebook database, but some may remain such as your name if you sent a message to someone else.

If you're planning to delete your Facebook account permanently, read on to learn about what steps you should take first.

1. Check Your Connected Apps

There are a lot of apps and websites that require you to log in using your Facebook username and password, and when you delete your Facebook account you lose access to these sites as well. You can check this by clicking on your Account Settings, then Apps in the left column. Popular apps that use Facebook login are Pinterest, Pandora, Foursquare, Spotify and Instagram. Some apps allow you to change your form of log in by using your email address or Twitter handle, for example. However, there are some sites that don't let you decouple your Facebook account from their app, like Spotify.

If you still want to use Spotify, your best bet is not to delete your Facebook account. If you want to almost delete your account to maintain your Spotify profile, you could remove all of your friends, change the email address associated with your Facebook account to one you don't use very often or turn off all email notifications for all apps, including Spotify, and lastly remove all of your data from Facebook and delete all of your activity, photos, etc. Though exhausting, taking this approach would allow you to keep all of the playlists you have made on Spotify and the songs you have been sent by friends, rather than starting over again.

If that sounds like way too much work for you, then you can always deactivate your Facebook account, and setup a new Facebook account with an email you only use for Spotify, and then authenticate Spotify from there. In taking this approach, you would lose all existing Spotify activity, so unless you are a new user and don't have much built up — the first option is probably the best, albeit time-consuming.

The big lesson here is to make sure your connected apps will let you change your form of login before you deactivate your Facebook account. You won't be able to change anything retroactively. If you have already deactivated your Facebook account and you can't login to these connected apps, you could reactivate your Facebook account and follow the steps listed above.

2. Download Your Facebook Information

For users who want to delete all history of their Facebook days but who still want a record of everything they've done on the site, Facebook has developed an easy way to download that information. Go to your Account Settings, click "General" in the left-hand column, then click on "Download a copy of your Facebook data", finish by clicking "Start My Archive"."

The information in this download is available in three places:

• Downloaded Info: This includes timeline information like posts you've shared, messages, photos, a history of the conversations you've had in Facebook chat, a list of your friends and much more.
• Expanded Archive: This is additional info, and contains even more account details like logins, cookies, apps you've subscribed to, people you have unfriended and much more.
• Activity Log: This is a comprehensive history of all your activity from posts you've commented on or liked, apps you've used, and anything you've ever searched for.

For a full breakdown of what information falls into each category, check out this Facebook chart. As you can see, the information available for download is extensive, so make sure you save it in a safe place in case you need to access it later.

Also, if you are just interested in saving certain conversations you've had with friends you can forward them to your email address. First go to the message stream and click on the Actions tab at the top. Next, scroll down to Forward Messages and select the ones you want to forward.

3. Ask for Your Friends' Birthdays

Facebook has become a reliable and convenient resource for remembering friends birthdays, so if you no longer have your account you might slip up and forget. Instead, be proactive in reaching out to your friends and tell them that you are deleting your Facebook account, but would still like to remember their birthday. Another way of doing this is to use the incredibly annoying Facebook Birthday's app. You could include a disclaimer at the top telling people that you're just using it to gather all of your friends' birthdays before you delete your account.

4. Ask for Contact Information

It's incredible to think about how much communication happens over Facebook alone. Before deleting your account, make sure that you have other ways to keep in touch with your friends, whether that is through email, texting or phone calls. Download that contact information for anyone you're worried about losing contact with.

5. Store Your Facebook Information on the Cloud

Backupify.com is a great way to store consumer web application data on the cloud. There are both paid and free services available, with the free service giving you 1GB of storage, or you can get up to 25GB for the paid service. The backups occur automatically, and you can download critical items as PDFs as well. Backupify files are stored in Amazon Web Services (AWS), which are subject to the highest security and boast a 99.9% up time.

6. Optimize Your SEO Before You Go

If you're leaving the Facebook community, make sure you are still active on enough other social platforms to maximize your SEO. You want to make sure that you are still searchable by friends or potential employers.

Are you seriously thinking about deleting your Facebook account? Let us know why in the comments.

Report by : Elisha Hartwig