You can delete everything, or enable a friend to download your data

Apr 11, 2013 16:33 GMT  ·  By

It's no surprise to anyone, no matter how little we like to admit it, that people die. And with everyone and their grandmother having online accounts these days, the question of what happens to those accounts after the unfortunate – yet unavoidable – event comes up more often than you think.

Several sites have policies to deal with this; Facebook can turn your profile into a memorial, but the process is rather convoluted and the fate of your account is left to your relatives, for better or for worse.

Google though would like to give you a say in what happens to your stuff after your timely or untimely demise, if for some reason you still care.

Google doesn't straight out say that the new tool, dubbed the Inactive Account Manager, is for when you die.

There are a few other situations when your account may become inactive; you could be stranded on a desert island for example. You would be able to eat all the cake you'd ever want, but you wouldn't be able log into your account.

With the new tool, you set up a period of time after which your account will be labeled as inactive.

This period is based on the time of your last login and can be set to between three months and one year.

When the account becomes inactive, your friends or family can be notified. You can decide whether to trust them with all of your data or not, and whether to delete the account altogether after it's been inactivated.

If you choose to delete your account, but a relative may request access to your data, your preference will be honored, as long as it's not against the law.

To date, this is the simplest tool and process of its kind and should probably serve as an example to other companies.