From GigaOM
Dealing with data after death ain’t easy. Here’s why
By Jordan Novet
If you want to know what happens to your online data after your death, you won’t get a clear answer. At the moment, it depends — on various companies’ terms of service, the state you live in and whether you’ve given another person access to your data — even though the data can have plenty of value, lawyer Stephen Wu pointed out at UC Berkeley’s DataEDGE conference on Friday.
First, Wu showed how, at least in California, digital data could be viewed as property just like physical property that an executor of a will should be able to obtain with a court order. “‘Property’ means anything that may be the subject of ownership and includes both real and personal property and any interest therein,” California probate code states.
And it turns out the data can have value. A recently deceased writer might have stored a breakthrough novel in her Dropbox, or she might have valuable assets on Second Life. She might have bought songs on iTunes, too. If those accounts get automatically deleted, though, the value can go away.
“What happens to that music upon death? It’s not really clear,” said Wu....
The School of Information hosted the 2013 DataEDGE conference May 30–31.