A digital will

Last week,Google introduced a tool called inactive account manager to let users control their digital life posthumously,or if they just decide to move on from Google. It is,in essence,an automated digital will that can be instructed on a course of action for all the digital assets a person might have accumulated over years of internet usage,at least across the vast web of Googles services,which include Gmail,YouTube,Picasa,Drive,Blogger and Google. The service allows you to receive a notification after three,six,nine or 12 months of inactivity,depending on your settings,after which time it sends you a text message warning that the settings will take effect. The manager can be set up to delete accounts entirely,or transfer control to trusted friends and family.

Earlier,in the days before the cloud took over,documents like leases,actual wills and certificates were stowed safely at home or at the bank. Now,bank details,passwords and other such information are increasingly stored online,and it may be important to ensure access for surviving members of family.

So much of our lives is now lived online. The question of what happens to the fragments of our digital selves when we are gone will only become more pertinent. Web companies like Google and Facebook,which deal with huge amounts of personal user data,and their consumers,have to increasingly confront the choice of whether to achieve digital immortality and leave fingerprints floating in cyberspace for posterity,or take the nuclear option and wipe out all traces of a digital life well lived.