Because You Don’t Need to Read Email from the Grave

Google Doodle from Day of the Dead 2012

In a move that will probably make those squeemish about their privacy happy, Google has morbidly announced their afterlife data management called the Inactive Account Manager.

The tool, which is available on your Google Account settings page, will let you determine exactly what to do with all your data in the event you don’t log in for a determined period of time (3 months, 6 months, 9 months, or 1 year). You will have the option to either allow Google to delete all of your data in one fell swoop or transfer ownership of your digital footprint over to a trusted relative, confidante, or total stranger.

The services indicated to take advantage of this transfer/deletion tool are +1s; Blogger; Contacts and Circles; Drive; Gmail; Google+ Profiles, Pages and Streams; Picasa Web Albums; Google Voice and YouTube.

For those of you out there who might panic that Google will inadvertently delete all your data because you won a one year, all expenses paid trip around the world, you can set the tool so that it will notify you before it does anything.

Might I suggest that you don’t use your Gmail address for the message?