追尋“網上足跡”，聚焦“數字遺產”

打開電腦，上QQ、MSN，和朋友、同事聊聊天;打開郵箱，看看有沒有客戶或朋友發來的郵件;在自己的博客上記錄所思所感或上各大論壇發貼子表達自己的意見……在這個網絡時代，人們的生活與“虛擬的”網絡世界已經變得越來越密不可分，網絡世界的一些東西也慢慢從虛擬走向現實，對此我們不得不思考:當一個人逝世后，他/她曾使用過的那些在線服務怎么處理呢?

國內中文網絡上曾經掀起過一次討論:“人死了之后，QQ號怎么辦?”答案五花八門，有說任其自然的，有說留給后代的。有人對此感嘆:不論是誰，最后都會成為別人好友列表里的一個灰色頭像……

據了解，我國現行法律法規還沒有把QQ、博客、游戲賬號等納入財產范疇。而在國外，“數字遺產”這一議題已經進入人們的視野，并出現了一些相關的通過網絡運營的“數字遺產”保管公司，我們不妨一起來了解探討一下。

Before her 21-year-old daughter died in a 1)sledding accident in early 2007， Pam Weiss had never 2)logged on to [1]Facebook. Back then， social-networking sites were used almost exclusively by the young. But she knew her daughter Amy Woolington， a 3)UCLA student， had an account， so in her grief Weiss turned to Facebook to look for photos. She found what she was looking for and more. She was soon communicating with her daughter’s many friends， sharing memories and even piecing together， through 4)posts her daughter had written， a blueprint of things she had hoped to do. “It makes me feel good that Amy had a positive effect on so many people， and I wouldn’t have had a clue if it hadn’t been for Facebook，” says Weiss.

And she wouldn’t have had a clue if she had waited too long. She managed to copy most of her daughter’s profile in the three months before Facebook 5)took it down.

Like a growing number of grieving relatives， Weiss6)tapped into one of the most powerful 7)troves of memories available: a loved one’s online presence. As people spend more time at keyboards， there’s less being stored away in dusty attics for family and friends to 8)hang on to. Letters have become e-mails. Diaries have 9)morphed into blogs. Photo albums have turned virtual. The pieces of our lives that we put online can feel as eternal as the Internet itself， but what happens to our virtual identity after we die?

It’s a thorny question， and for now， the answer depends on which sites you use. Privacy is a major issue. So are company policies to delete inactive accounts.

Facebook amended its policy a few months after Woolington died. “We first realized we needed a 10)protocol for deceased users after the 11)Virginia Tech shooting， when students were looking for ways to remember and honor their classmates，” says Facebook spokeswoman Elizabeth Linder. The company responded by creating a “memorial state” for profiles of deceased users， in which 12)features such as status updates and group affiliations are removed. Only the user’s confirmed friends can continue to view the profile and post comments on it.

If 13)next of kin ask to have a profile taken down， Facebook will comply. It will not， however， hand over a user’s password to let a family member access the account， which means private messages are kept just that.

Rival [2]MySpace has a similar policy blocking account access but has fewer restrictions on profile-viewing. (This inspired an entrepreneur to create MyDeathSpace.com， which started out aggregating profiles of the deceased and has since morphed into a 14)ghoulish tabloid.)

E-mail is more complicated. Would you want， say， your parents to be able to access your account so they could contact all your 15)far-flung friends—whom you don’t have in your address book because you don’t have an address book—and tell them that you’ve passed on? Maybe. Would you want them to be able to read every message you’ve ever sent? Maybe not.

[3]Yahoo! Mail’s rule is to keep accounts private. “The commitment Yahoo! makes to every person who signs up for an account is to treat their online activities as confidential， even after their death，” says spokesman Jason Khoury. Court orders sometimes 16)overrule that. In 2005， relatives of a 17)Marine killed in Iraq requested access to his e-mail account so they could make a scrapbook. When a judge sided with the family， Yahoo! copied the messages to a CD instead of turning over the account’s password. [4]Hotmail now allows family members to order a CD as long as they provide proof that they have power of attorney and a death certificate.[5]Gmail requires the same paperwork， plus a copy of an e-mail the deceased sent to the 18)petitioner.

If that sounds like a lot of trouble to 19)put your loved ones through， several companies are eager to help you plan ahead—for a fee， of course. Legacy Locker， Asset Lock and Deathswitch are among the firms offering 20)encrypted space for people to store their passwords and other information.

Legacy Locker， a San Francisco-based site is 21)looking to handle all the details of your online afterlife for $30 a year or a onetime fee of $300. To determine whether you have passed on， the firm will check with two “22)verifiers” (people you have designated to confirm your death) and examine a death certificate.

Deathswitch， which is based in 23)Houston， has a different system for releasing the funeral instructions， love notes and “unspeakable secrets” it suggests you store with your passwords and account 24)info. The company will regularly send you e-mail 25)prompts to verify that you’re still alive， at a frequency of your choosing. (Once a day? Once a year?) After a series of unanswered prompts， it will assume you’re dead and release your messages to 26)intended 27)recipients. One message is free; for more， the company charges members $19.95 a year.

“Digital legacy is at best misunderstood and at worst not thought about，” says Legacy Locker founder Jeremy Toeman， who came up with the idea for his company 28)mid-flight， when he was imagining what would happen to his many Web 29)domains if the plane crashed. “I would be surprised if five years from now， it’s not common for people to consider their digital assets alongside their wills.”

帕姆·維斯從來沒有登錄過“臉譜網”，直到2007年早些時候，她21歲的女兒在一次滑雪事故中不幸喪生。在那個時候，社交類網站(SNS)的主流用戶幾乎都是年輕人。但當她知道女兒艾米·沃靈頓(加利福尼亞大學洛杉磯分校的一名學生)在“臉譜網”上有一個帳戶后，處在悲傷中的維斯登錄了這個網站去找尋女兒的照片。她找到了她所需要的，甚至更多。很快地，她與女兒的許多朋友聯系上，分享回憶，看著女兒在網上寫下的一些東西，她甚至能拼湊出女兒曾經的夢想藍圖?！翱吹桨自泴@么多人產生過積極的影響，這讓我感覺好多了。