Illinois Prof Calls for a Federal Law To Safeguard Digital Afterlives 82
An anonymous reader writes "A new paper from Professor Jason Mazzone at the University of Illinois calls for federal laws to regulate what happens to digital accounts after the account holder's death. Mazzone argues that Facebook and other online services have policies for deceased users' accounts that do not adequately protect the individual property and privacy interests at stake. The full text of the paper (called "Facebook's Afterlife") is also available: "
Here's my solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There Ought to be a Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because so many corporations would sell babies for dog food if there wasn't a law that says otherwise. There are many bad behaviors that at a personal level are covered by common decency but corporations are functionally sociopathic and only respond to laws. Then there's the people (many on /.) that for some reason think that's just fine.
Re:the solution is autodeletion. (Score:5, Insightful)
And since this is so obvious from a business standing, we don't really need any legislation to encourage it.
Oh man, good joke.
Just like when businesses used toxic chemicals to conduct their business and let it slide off into the creek/river.
Just like when coal companies cleaned up the coal dust because it caused health issues and made cities look bad.
Right... I trust businesses to do only one thing... keep their wallets fat so the little that we peons do get when it trickles down, makes us just happy we have a job.
19th century here we come!
Re:What is you friends disagree? (Score:4, Insightful)