Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, "The only things certain in life are death and taxes." The death of anyone has ripple effects on their surrounding family and friends, but it can also serve as an opening for someone to go after content such as emails, pictures and video they may have stored in their online accounts.
Today, Google announced that it is offering a way for people who currently use their online services such as Gmail, YouTube, Blogger and others to delete their account after they make the trip to the pearly gates. In a post on its Public Policy blog, Google called the new feature the Inactive Account Manager, which even they admit is not the best title for the service.
Basically, people can use the manger to tell Google to delete their account and data if it becomes inactive after a set period of time. Users can choose to trigger the account deletion after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity. Google will send out an email when it senses that your account is close to the inactive time limit you have set up.
The Inactive Account Manager can also alert any family and friends you choose to designate to get alerts about your Google account if it get close to the deletion time period. You can even set it up so that after you die or become inactive, others can receive data from your Google account. The manager covers Google services like +1s, Blogger, Contacts and Circles, Drive, Gmail, Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube.
Source: Google | Image via Google