What happens to my domain, website and email when I die?

A lot of folks suggest getting your own domain name for having control over your online presence but the question that I have always had is what would happen to them when I die?

Wouldn't the domains eventually expire and anyone else would be able to register it and access my email attached to that domain? With that email, they can theoretically get into all my accounts which don't have 2FA on (a lot of the sites just don't have the option to turn on 2FA) via the 'Forgot my password' services?

Similarly, if I have a blog or website that I have poured my heart and soul into for my entire life, wouldn't that just go down forever when the domain expires? Maybe services like The Internet Archive would help in that regard but I don't know how many people are actively searching for an archived version of a website when they can't access it on it's actual domain.

I understand that after I die, all of this wouldn't by my concern and wouldn't matter but I still think about this a lot.

To the people who have their own domain, email and/or blogs, what are your thoughts on this?

afraid_of_zombies ,

One idea I had was to randomly put stuff into content that might pay off later. Write random sentences that say things like "saw Tom today, people are saying his brother is the chosen one." Or "lot of traffic today, heard it was because this guy was doing crazy miracles and declared himself king".

Tactius is going to be read forever because he interviewed a Christian one time and wrote one sentence.

HubertManne ,

everything you describe would happen. unless you start a foundation to continue your blog only the internet archive would have it.

teuto ,

When my dad died, no one renewed his domain, [last name].com, and some domain squatter bought it. A few years later the squatter noticed that I owned [last name].net and offered to sell it to me. I didn't respond and I guess they figured out that an obscure last name isn't worth anything and let it expire. I should probably buy it.

lando55 ,

The ol' Uno reverso countersquat technique, I like it

NeoNachtwaechter ,

Depends on which country you live and which country you die.

schnurrito ,

Most domain and web hosting plans expire when no one pays to renew them.

One thing you could do is put your work under a free license. That would allow people to copy it which should make sure that your work will be preserved by others.

ultrahamster64 ,
@ultrahamster64@lemmy.world avatar

Sorry for yapping, but this is a very perplexing problem that even we as a collective civilization struggle with. For example: how do you keep future generations out of nuclear waste vaults on a 1000/2000/1`000'000 year scale (we don't even talk about infinity, because it is surprise infinite times larger), because we cannot predict how even our language and (more than that) our culture would look like. One text/symbol/pictogram could tell something completely different to a person 10000 years in the future, than to a current-day one.

For me, the most interesting part was the conclusion: instead of using static language or pictograms printed on the walls (although some menacing skulls wouldn't hurt) they instead opted out to a more dynamic and "updatable" forms of media - myths and legends (and maybe also a church, but I don't remember). And that is not as ridiculous as it sounds - some of the myths from the past that we can read, like, right now, were created more than a couple thousand years ago (some even more than 10000). Also, an obvious note, but they weren't created in a modern language. So this means that everything around them basically died/changed: the author, many many many of the ones who retold them, their first written forms, the printing company that first printed them, even the language (basically, transmission protocol) on which it was created is dead.

So (if we get back to the original scope of the question) that means that you basically have two choices:

  1. Make your web site out of stone and hide it somewhere around Antarctica.

"+":

  • the decay would be greatly slow down
  • no one is going to (or, could) delete/destroy it

"-":

  • no one is probably going to see it for a looong time (and when the do, they might not understand a thing)
  1. Not be silly.

The thought of everything that you do/have/see breaking to dust is equally scary and relaxing - but it is true. No matter how much you paid for your domain name, or how your server is getting power out of solar, self-backups and self-repairs - everything eventually would break, catch fire, explode and turn off.

Or rather it will, without someone maintaining it. Because the only man-made things that live forever are doing so on the power of human resilience and preservation. It's like this ancient art of a horse on some hill in the UK, that would be erased by the tides of history a loong time ago, but is still here because a couple of english mates have a bucket of white paint and some free time on tuesday.

So if you think about how this site that you poured your heart and soul into would instantly vanish as soon as you're dead, remember: as long as someone cares and loves what you do (and with some coordination), the thing that you made would transcend the boundaries of some hostings, domains and internet protocols (and maybe even the language itself) and live in the minds of people, truly, forever.

bionicjoey ,

For example: how do you keep future generations out of nuclear waste vaults on a 1000/2000/1`000'000 year scale (we don't even talk about infinity, because it is surprise infinite times larger)

We actually only care about that for long enough for the radioactivity to wear off, which takes on the order of hundreds of years, not a million.

ultrahamster64 ,
@ultrahamster64@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, thank you for correcting. I was in the zone when writing and exaggerated a bit :)

Although I should note that it still is a really long time!!

snownyte ,
@snownyte@kbin.social avatar

I used to once believe, that a lot of what is on the internet lasts forever. It was a little naive to think, because over the course of my time online, I've seen things that I thought would last, ended up not lasting.

I would sometimes cross-search old usernames of mine because I do get around online. I can only now see my past accounts that I've made at least 5 years ago. Only 2 accounts that I recall, are 10+ years old when it used to be a bit more. It tells me that things will shut down eventually and it'll take down many accounts with it.

Unless you are on platforms hosted by Google or Microsoft by using their services, it's going to last for a long time because they're a little too big to just simply vanish overnight.

Your best option is to just back up what you can and if you remember to before you die, make arrangements for preservation purposes with instructions to those you'd want in on it.

jjagaimo ,

Just searched my old user names and found absolutely nothing except for one post from 2012 on Minecraft forums

It's one part a lack of SEO/searchability and nine parts sites that are dead and gone taking that information with them.

I haven't been the best about backups, passwords, etc but I'll probably set up a dead mans switch at some point to release my passwords to my family and delete my drives if/when I can't do it myself. I've already got bro on call to drive to my house and shred the drives •=•

9point6 ,

If you want your content to live beyond you, you would need to set up some kind of trust to conserve it. Some investments that would make enough money to continue to pay for maintenance, probably someone would need to keep an eye on it too as hosting companies won't last forever, so things will need moving eventually.

Generally practically nothing we do lasts forever though, you can take measures to resist that for a while, but ultimately nearly everything is forgotten

bionicjoey ,

You can't guarantee it will live on, but unfortunately it's more assured if you use somebody else's platform to host your content. For example I can still go watch TotalBiscuit videos since he put them on YouTube (and also because his widow keeps up the channel)

NoneYa ,

Speaking from experience, once you stop paying, they become available for purchase.

I let mine lapse and some Chinese gambling site picked it up for their own business. I always wondered why Chinese sites were coming to my site when I owned it lol.

If it’s a more obscure name, it’s likely it’ll just be one of those sites that advertises that it’s available until someone buys it.

NateNate60 ,

You are correct. Once a domain registration expires, anyone will be able to register that domain again. If they set up a mail server, they'll be able to make email inboxes to receive emails sent to that domain.

If you have a website or blog that you're hosting on the domain, once the resignation expires, the server might still be up but nobody will be able to access that site via its domain name from the public Internet using that domain name any more, as the A/AAAA records pointing to that server will be erased. If there is nobody to pay the hosting bills, then the server will eventually be taken offline and all the data will be deleted. If you self-host, the data will stay on that server's disk(s) until your heirs sell or recycle it.

If you want someone to continue running your server and keeping up your domain registrations, you will need to arrange that before you die. Otherwise, it will all likely be whisked away into the ether.

chemical_cutthroat ,
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

You'd have to self-host anything you want to have up "forever", and that hosting would have to continue after your death by whatever means you set up. In reality what you'd want to do if you want to preserve your digital life is create physical back-ups of it so that family or friends can revisit it after you are gone. If everything is up on the web, and that's it, then it will all be deleted as soon as the money stops coming in to whomever is hosting it.

The same goes for your email, though to a lesser extent. If you have a gmail account, I believe there was a kerfuffle about them deleting untouched accounts a few years ago, and I don't know if they ever did or not, but your account with whomever you use will persist until such time as they deem it not to.

juergen ,

What do you care? You are dead.

In general, everything will stick around as long as you paid for it. Your email account and your web site will probably be unceremoniously deleted once the money runs out, and the domain name itself will be freed up. While you use your domain to point to your web site and your email account, they won't be associated forever: Once they expire, the name is available for someone else to fill it with new content, not to get access to your existing content.

Oooooor: You could bequeath all your online assets to a family member in your will (don't forget to give them all relevant passwords), possibly along with some money to keep paying for the domain registration, email- and web hosting.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

Once they expire, the name is available for someone else to fill it with new content, not to get access to your existing content.

While they may not directly get access to content after a domain has been recycled... nothing would really stop someone from registering your domain, and setting up your same email address again. Which would then give them access to basically all of your old accounts just by clicking on forgot password links.

Now is that likely to happen to a random person? Not likely, but there's not really anything to prevent it. Most services don't prune old unused accounts very often, or ever really.

snownyte ,
@snownyte@kbin.social avatar

Yeah but these days, if someone sets up mobile verification or 2FA, it's not going to be that easy going through forgot password links. Codes will just be sent to a mobile phone or a recovery address that most likely won't be seen and it'll force the individual wanting access to go the route of hacking means.

NessD ,

I usually enable 2FA where possible. I just counted my accounts that use them: 14. My password manager stores around 100 accounts. So, yeah.

whyNotSquirrel ,
@whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works avatar

There was an article around here yesterday that confirm your thoughts.

They did got access to old email and services via those email

https://inti.io/p/when-privacy-expires-how-i-got-access

Star OP ,

Yeah, I made this post after reading that article. There is clearly a problem with how domains and their renewals are managed. I'm not sure what a solution would look like, though.

WhyAUsername_1 ,

Throw lot of money and buy whole TLD for life.
/j

lemann ,

I was actually going to do that for my domain, sadly 100yr registration is very expensive with vanity ones

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