Yahoo
Japan launched a new service uniquely designed to serve the country's
large population of elderly people, by tidying up their digital
footprints after they die.
Called
Yahoo Ending, the service enables users to close their Yahoo Japan
account, and have a final message sent to up to 200 pre-registered email
addresses of family and friends, once their death has been confirmed.
In
addition to erasing any data in the account, Yahoo Ending — which costs
180 yen (about $1.77) per month — can stop automatic bill payments made
through the Yahoo Japan wallet service.
Loved
ones can also visit a special bulletin-board page for the deceased, and
post memorial messages. Prior to death, the service even helps users
search for a cemetery, and can estimate the cost of funeral
arrangements.
There
are multiple U.S. services that handle a person's digital footprint
after death, but as third-party operations, a lack of trust could make
some hesitant to adopt these services. With Yahoo Ending, however —
which is operated by a company the user already trusts with his or her
data — such concerns will likely be allayed.
For
its part, Facebook has been monitoring the post-life digital-presence
space, and even modified its policies in February to offer memorial
videos of deceased members. Similarly, although not specifically
targeted at the deceased, Google's Gmail service offers a tool called
Inactive Account Manager, which lets users automatically delete their
account after a set time-out period.
In
an interview with The Japan Times, Yahoo Japan spokesperson Megumi
Nakashima said future updates of the service may go even further,
allowing the deceased to manage their post-life affairs on non-Yahoo
Japan services.
"For
example, we are thinking of partnering with credit-card companies,"
Nakashima said, "so that the user can configure Yahoo Ending to tell
such companies to close out the user’s account."
Posted by : Gizmeon
No comments:
Post a Comment