By Mike Klein & Brian Canin
Offensive material posted on dead teen's Facebook page, Madison Startup has solution
Today is Veteran's Day and we remember Justin Ellsworth, a soldier killed in Iraq in 2004. His family sought access to over more than 10,000 pages of e-mail messages and photographs from Yahoo, who denied their request. An Oakland County judge ordered Yahoo to turn over Ellsworth's digital assets. What happens to your online presence when you're gone? Does Facebook Twitter, Second Life, or Google own your personal data, photos, and videos or is there a succession plan for your heirs? What if you don't want your heirs to have access to your Facebook account? Just
Last Sunday, Cameron Lowe, 17, was attacked by youths in Australia. He fell and hit his head and later died in hospital. Police are working to have offensive material removed from a memorial Facebook page website set up by friends of Cameron.
It is embarrassing for your mom, family and friends to see your Facebook information when the unthinkable happens and you check out before your data does. Facebook users still exist in their system after their corporal existence has been snuffed out. Google, a company taking heat for making it difficult to recover your identity should it be hacked and who has only heuristics and no human interaction in the account recovery processes, will actually on request and after your demise package up your digital identity by physically burning multiple DVD's and shipping it out to your heirs via the US post office - a non-virtual and time consuming event for a very virtual company or delete your account.
There have been recent incidents among Facebook users who have died, where their accounts have been hacked and spam and porno sent to the users friends list. This is painful and embarrassing for the deceased family and friends. Twitter has death policy as of August, 2010.
According to the Jesse Davis and Nate Lustig at Entrustet a cutting edge startup dealing with the protection of digital property & assets, three Facebook users die each minute, and what happens to their digital assets are right now a hot bed for litigation and controversy. Entrustet provides an online service in what some call, but they aren't fond of, the “Digital Death Industry”, a new concept for many of us in and out of the technology world and one which is becoming more and more significant as our virtual presence becomes larger and more entwined in an ever increasingly digital world. The first Digital Death Day Conference was held October 9th in Mountain View, California.
According to Lustig, Faceboook offers a moralization of your profile, which removes your profile, and wall from Google's search results and only lets existing friends comment after you're gone.
“The problem is that most people do not know they offer it,” Lustig said. “There is no way no way to curate what goes on your wall after you die. So if someone posts an disparaging comment about you to your wall no one can edit it and/or delete it.”
Entrustet's model is very interesting. They partner with the various social media and web communities where people interact, post photos and videos as well as `manage' their online presence and digital assets.
The company's vision came from Thomas' book,"The World is Flat", who wrote about Ellsworth's family experience with Yahoo anf access to deceased people's digital assets. Friedman asked, who will sort this out?
Entrustet offers packaged services to attorneys and estate planners who are increasingly having to deal with end of life digital media asset issues on behalf of their clients. Entrustet offers clients and consumers a web based service at which the user make decisions about how their virtual property will be dealt with should they expire before their accounts do.
WTN News caught up with Nate and Jesse at their Madison, Wisconsin office just as they getting ready to embark on an international adventure.
These two entrepreneurs are moving their executive office to Santiago, Chile for a 6 month adventure in South America. Why Chile? The Chilean government has created Startup Chile, an initiative of the Chilean Government to attract world-class early stage entrepreneurs to start their businesses in Chile. They selected 25 high potential startup companies and entrepreneurs who have an innovative business plan with the potential of reaching multiple international markets. Start-Up Chile covers up to 90% of the project's budget, which includes operational expenses, investments, and human resources
“We are excited about getting to meet 25 high-impact entrepreneurial companies and collaborate and experience what it will be like to startup and run a bushiness in a another country as well as learn what Chileans think about the digital death industry,” Lustig said. "We have experienced a lukewarm reaction to our concept by some investors because it's human nature that people don't want to think about death and the U.S. military was interested, but we are not on the official procurement lists.”
Entrustet is currently a live website accepting members, the company is generating revenue and will be cash-flow positive in the near future,” Lustig said.
Members create a list of online accounts, and profiles including passwords and user names of accounts they have and how they want their digital assets handled.
The company has one major east coast investor as well as Madison, friends, family and angel financing. They are not seeking another funding round or venture capital financing for another 6-9 months as they seek partnerships with corporate web site partnerships with companies such American Express, Northwestern Mutual, domain registrars such as Go Daddy, social networking sites and photo and video sharing sites.
The company is redesigning their website, fine tuning the business model, and further prove the execution of their business plan. Entrustit currently has more than 4000 members, is utilized by 16 law firms representing 10,000 clients and has a partnership with independent music web site Broadjam, who has 120,000 members. The company has three major deals in their pipeline.
We wish them success!
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