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(fā)來的郵件;在自己的博客上記錄所思所感或上各大論壇發(fā)貼子表達(dá)自己的意見……在這個(gè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)時(shí)代，人們的生活與“虛擬的”網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界已經(jīng)變得越來越密不可分，網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界的一些東西也慢慢從虛擬走向現(xiàn)實(shí)，對(duì)此我們不得不思考:當(dāng)一個(gè)人逝世后，他/她曾使用過的那些在線服務(wù)怎么處理呢?

國(guó)內(nèi)中文網(wǎng)絡(luò)上曾經(jīng)掀起過一次討論:“人死了之后，QQ號(hào)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(duì)此感嘆:不論是誰，最后都會(huì)成為別人好友列表里的一個(gè)灰色頭像……

據(jù)了解，我國(guó)現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)還沒有把QQ、博客、游戲賬號(hào)等納入財(cái)產(chǎn)范疇。而在國(guó)外，“數(shù)字遺產(chǎn)”這一議題已經(jīng)進(jìn)入人們的視野，并出現(xiàn)了一些相關(guān)的通過網(wǎng)絡(luò)運(yùn)營(yíng)的“數(shù)字遺產(chǎn)”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(wǎng)”，直到2007年早些時(shí)候，她21歲的女兒在一次滑雪事故中不幸喪生。在那個(gè)時(shí)候，社交類網(wǎng)站(SNS)的主流用戶幾乎都是年輕人。但當(dāng)她知道女兒艾米·沃靈頓(加利福尼亞大學(xué)洛杉磯分校的一名學(xué)生)在“臉譜網(wǎng)”上有一個(gè)帳戶后，處在悲傷中的維斯登錄了這個(gè)網(wǎng)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(lián)系上，分享回憶，看著女兒在網(wǎng)上寫下的一些東西，她甚至能拼湊出女兒曾經(jīng)的夢(mèng)想藍(lán)圖?！翱吹桨自?jīng)對(duì)這么多人產(chǎn)生過積極的影響，這讓我感覺好多了。如果我沒有登錄‘臉譜網(wǎng)’，根本就不會(huì)知道這些。”維斯說。

確實(shí)，如果她動(dòng)作慢一點(diǎn)的話，便難以知道這一切。再過三個(gè)月，“臉譜網(wǎng)”就會(huì)注銷艾米的帳戶，而維斯則成功地在這限期內(nèi)將女兒的大部分資料復(fù)制保存了下來。

與越來越多不幸喪親的人們一樣，維斯打開了一個(gè)她能找到的埋藏著最豐富記憶的寶藏:深愛之人的網(wǎng)上足跡。隨著人們花費(fèi)在鍵盤上的時(shí)間越來越多，塵封在閣樓之上、留給親人好友睹思的物件就越來越少。信件變成了電子郵件，日記轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)椴┛?，相?cè)變成虛擬的。我們將自己的生活零碎片斷放到網(wǎng)上，覺得它們似乎和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)本身一樣永恒，但是在我們死去之后，我們的虛擬身份會(huì)變成怎樣?

這是一個(gè)棘手的問題。就目前狀況來看，答案取決于你使用哪家網(wǎng)站的服務(wù)。涉及到的是個(gè)人隱私這一大議題，同時(shí)，“刪除不活動(dòng)帳戶”這樣的公司服務(wù)條款也是個(gè)大問題。

在沃靈頓離世幾個(gè)月之后，“臉譜網(wǎng)”修改了他們的服務(wù)條款?！案ゼ醽喞砉ご髮W(xué)校園槍擊案發(fā)生之后，學(xué)生們尋找各種方式回憶和紀(jì)念他們的同學(xué)，那時(shí)候，我們第一次意識(shí)到有必要針對(duì)離世的用戶制定一套新的操作規(guī)程?！?“臉譜網(wǎng)”公司的女發(fā)言人伊麗莎白·林德說。于是，該公司為已故用戶的檔案創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)“紀(jì)念狀態(tài)”，取消了這些帳戶的“狀態(tài)更新”和“群組關(guān)系”等功能，而且只允許經(jīng)過用戶認(rèn)證的好友才能繼續(xù)瀏覽該用戶檔案和在該頁面發(fā)表評(píng)論。

如果親屬要求撤下該用戶的檔案，“臉譜網(wǎng)”將會(huì)照做。但是他們不會(huì)向任一家屬公開該用戶的密碼，讓其登錄帳戶——這意味著，私人信息就此“安息”。

“臉譜網(wǎng)”的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手“聚友網(wǎng)”也有類似的服務(wù)條款。他們會(huì)封存離世用戶的帳戶，但不會(huì)對(duì)頁面瀏覽設(shè)置更多的限制。(這激發(fā)了一家公司的靈感，促使他們創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)叫MyDeathSpace.com的網(wǎng)站，用于收集已故用戶的信息，不過現(xiàn)在它已儼然演變成一份冷血的八卦小報(bào)了。)

電子郵件的問題則更為復(fù)雜。試想，你愿意讓你的父母登錄你的帳戶嗎?這樣他們就可以找到你疏于聯(lián)系的朋友——他們不在你的電話號(hào)碼本上，因?yàn)槟愀緵]有電話號(hào)碼本——告訴他們你的死訊。也許吧。那么你是否愿意讓你的父母看你曾經(jīng)發(fā)出的每一封郵件呢?那就未必了。

雅虎郵箱的規(guī)則是保持帳戶的私密性?！拔覀儗?duì)在雅虎注冊(cè)的每位用戶作出承諾，他們?cè)谘呕⒕W(wǎng)上的活動(dòng)將被保密，即便在他們?nèi)ナ篮笠彩侨绱恕?，雅虎公司的發(fā)言人詹森·胡里說。然而，法院下達(dá)的命令有時(shí)候會(huì)推翻這條規(guī)定。2005年，一名死于伊拉克的海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊(duì)軍人的親屬要求登錄死者的電子郵件賬戶，方便他們制作一本剪貼簿。法官支持家屬的請(qǐng)求，于是雅虎將郵件復(fù)制到一張光盤上交給了他們，而不是直接給出密碼。Hotmail現(xiàn)在允許家庭成員申請(qǐng)一張數(shù)據(jù)光盤，只要他們提供授權(quán)書和死亡證明。Gmail在這些文件之外，還要求提供一份死者寄給申請(qǐng)人的郵件副本。

如果上面那些聽起來讓你覺得使你至愛之人成功獲得你的“數(shù)字遺產(chǎn)”是件麻煩的事，一些公司很愿意助你未雨綢繆——當(dāng)然，要收費(fèi)的?！斑z物守護(hù)者”、“財(cái)產(chǎn)鎖定”和“死亡開關(guān)”等公司都提供加密空間，讓人們保存他們的密碼以及其他信息。

“遺物守護(hù)者”，一家位于舊金山的網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司，許諾為其用戶處理身后遺留在網(wǎng)上的信息數(shù)據(jù)，但要收取每年30美金或一次性支付的300美金服務(wù)費(fèi)。為了確認(rèn)你是不是已離世，公司會(huì)向兩個(gè)“證明人”(你所指定的“死亡證明人”)核實(shí)并驗(yàn)證死亡證明。

位于休斯頓的網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司“死亡開關(guān)”建議你隨帳戶密碼及個(gè)人信息分類存儲(chǔ)“葬禮安排囑咐”、“愛的留言”、“不能說的秘密”，對(duì)這些信息的公開，該公司有不同的管理系統(tǒng)。公司將定期向你發(fā)送一封郵件(每天一封或每年一封，可以自由選擇)以確定你是否還活著。當(dāng)連續(xù)幾封提醒郵件沒有得到回應(yīng)之后，系統(tǒng)會(huì)假定你已經(jīng)亡故，并向你預(yù)先設(shè)定好的收件人發(fā)放你的信息。發(fā)一條信息是免費(fèi) 的——但若想發(fā)出更多，他們將收取你19.95美元的年費(fèi)。

“樂觀地看，社會(huì)對(duì)‘?dāng)?shù)字遺產(chǎn)’這個(gè)問題是有所考慮的，只是存在著一些誤解;但悲觀地說，其實(shí)大家根本沒想過這個(gè)問題?！薄斑z物守護(hù)者”的創(chuàng)立者杰瑞米·特曼說。他創(chuàng)建這家公司的念頭源于一次乘坐飛機(jī)時(shí)的想象:如果飛機(jī)失事，他公司的眾多網(wǎng)站域名將會(huì)怎樣。“從現(xiàn)在開始算，我相信五年后大多數(shù)人在立遺囑的時(shí)候都會(huì)考慮到他們的‘?dāng)?shù)字遺產(chǎn)’?！?/p>