23 ms·

Inactive Account Manager

62 points by adamrmcd 12y ago

adamrmcd 12y ago
I have no idea when this was announced, if at all. I just came across this "Inactivity Account Manager" and thought of it as a "Dead man's switch" solution. Under the "Add Trusted Contact" section, you can write a personal "atonement" email to whoever will receive your data. At least that's how the message to my wife is turning out :|
- cypherpunks01 12y ago
  It came out a little more than a year ago. Pretty quiet launch, but they blogged about it: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/04/plan-your-digital-afterlife-with.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/04/plan-your-dig... I think Wired and some other folks picked it up then too.
jws 12y ago
You are trying to access Inactive Account Manager from a Google Apps Account. Inactive Account Manager is only available for Google Accounts. Google UI at its finest.
- iancarroll 12y ago
  Anyone know if this is possible within the Google Apps console? Or is it locked out from us.
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  Try having 4 emails from clients that insist you use their domain email (hosted on GApps) and switching to them or your personal email to check out your google analytics. It's a total and absolute -sham-. I still don't understand how they can screw up such basic functionality. Hell, even YouTube has -basic things- completely wrong. For example, I leave a comment on a video. I want to see my comment three months down the line and see if I have any replies and what score it has. I can't find that - anywhere. Where can I easily find my comments? Christ.
  - madeofpalk 12y ago
    To be fair, handling multiple accounts I would imagine is pretty hard. And then coordinating that across all of Googles suite of servies would only add to the complexity. I'm not aware of any other provider or site that lets you be logged in with two accounts at once.
    - Einstalbert 12y ago
      What is odd to me is that it used to work pefectly fine. Around two or three years ago, however, I believe the changed the way their login system worked and it suddenly had trouble keeping more than one account logged in. I was super happy with Gmail when I had my @gmail.com, @personaldomain1.com, etc. accounts all open at once. My solution to that problem has been to largely ignore my other inboxes...
  - thrownaway2424 12y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/inbox#comments/ https://www.youtube.com/inbox#comments/
- saurik 12y ago
  The goal of Google Apps is to allow a domain administrator to own your account. I am having a difficult time coming up with a use case where you want an employee to be able to grant their account upon it becoming "inactive" to someone else: if the employee dies or leaves for some long period, the domain administrator should simply reclaim the account (and the domain administrator's password should itself not be something you are reliant on a feature like this to grant access to: it should be information known to the company, similar to bank account details). (Or is the complaint just that the distinction between "Google Apps Account" and "Google Account" isn't sufficiently clear? If so, I agree: they should have drastically different branding to make the difference more understandable. As it stands, I know people who seem to be trying to use Google Apps accounts as their personal account, which leads to situations where changing your e-mail hosting provider effectively means you lose access to your Google services and data. Even worse are employees/students who store personal data to their managed accounts :(.)
  - ableal 12y ago
    "I don't know where I am." "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground." https://www2.bc.edu/~radinr/Management_Humor/jokes.htm https://www2.bc.edu/~radinr/Management_Humor/jokes.htm
RexM 12y ago
Does this include chrome's history?
- jayzalowitz 12y ago
  No, its awesome and deletes your browser history when you die.
  - tlrobinson 12y ago
    Relevant: http://www.snotr.com/video/3806/Porn_Buddies http://www.snotr.com/video/3806/Porn_Buddies
jmathai 12y ago
34 words; Inactive Account Manager is used 4 times. Representing 35% of the message.
- rb9999 12y ago
  HN title: 4 words (including appended domain). Inactive Account Manager is used 1 time. Representing 75% of the message. The more you write, the lower that percentage that should drop to. 35% of 34 words is fair.
SeanKilleen 12y ago
Sorry I didn't see this earlier. A fantastic tool, even if it's filling me with existential dread having to write these messages to my loved ones. A really elegant solution to the "Dead man switch". I'm glad Google thought to do this. It may be a small thing, but it did really matter to me.
planckscnst 12y ago
Wow, that was a surreal, emotionally moving experience. I recommend everyone to go through it even if you don't want to enable it.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ferongr 12y ago
The first time I navigated to that page (by accident, I was exploring my Google account settings) I sat there looking at the screen puzzled. It took me almost 5 minutes to realize that this nebulous description actually meant the passing of the account owner. Couldn't they label it more clearly?

62 points by adamrmcd 12y ago

I have no idea when this was announced, if at all. I just came across this "Inactivity Account Manager" and thought of it as a "Dead man's switch" solution. Under the "Add Trusted Contact" section, you can write a personal "atonement" email to whoever will receive your data. At least that's how the message to my wife is turning out :|

cypherpunks01 12y ago
It came out a little more than a year ago. Pretty quiet launch, but they blogged about it: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/04/plan-your-digital-afterlife-with.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/04/plan-your-dig... I think Wired and some other folks picked it up then too.

jws 12y ago

You are trying to access Inactive Account Manager from a Google Apps Account. Inactive Account Manager is only available for Google Accounts. Google UI at its finest.

iancarroll 12y ago
Anyone know if this is possible within the Google Apps console? Or is it locked out from us.
sergiotapia 12y ago
Try having 4 emails from clients that insist you use their domain email (hosted on GApps) and switching to them or your personal email to check out your google analytics. It's a total and absolute -sham-. I still don't understand how they can screw up such basic functionality. Hell, even YouTube has -basic things- completely wrong. For example, I leave a comment on a video. I want to see my comment three months down the line and see if I have any replies and what score it has. I can't find that - anywhere. Where can I easily find my comments? Christ.
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  To be fair, handling multiple accounts I would imagine is pretty hard. And then coordinating that across all of Googles suite of servies would only add to the complexity. I'm not aware of any other provider or site that lets you be logged in with two accounts at once.
  - Einstalbert 12y ago
    What is odd to me is that it used to work pefectly fine. Around two or three years ago, however, I believe the changed the way their login system worked and it suddenly had trouble keeping more than one account logged in. I was super happy with Gmail when I had my @gmail.com, @personaldomain1.com, etc. accounts all open at once. My solution to that problem has been to largely ignore my other inboxes...
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/inbox#comments/ https://www.youtube.com/inbox#comments/
saurik 12y ago
The goal of Google Apps is to allow a domain administrator to own your account. I am having a difficult time coming up with a use case where you want an employee to be able to grant their account upon it becoming "inactive" to someone else: if the employee dies or leaves for some long period, the domain administrator should simply reclaim the account (and the domain administrator's password should itself not be something you are reliant on a feature like this to grant access to: it should be information known to the company, similar to bank account details). (Or is the complaint just that the distinction between "Google Apps Account" and "Google Account" isn't sufficiently clear? If so, I agree: they should have drastically different branding to make the difference more understandable. As it stands, I know people who seem to be trying to use Google Apps accounts as their personal account, which leads to situations where changing your e-mail hosting provider effectively means you lose access to your Google services and data. Even worse are employees/students who store personal data to their managed accounts :(.)
- ableal 12y ago
  "I don't know where I am." "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground." https://www2.bc.edu/~radinr/Management_Humor/jokes.htm https://www2.bc.edu/~radinr/Management_Humor/jokes.htm

RexM 12y ago

Does this include chrome's history?

jayzalowitz 12y ago
No, its awesome and deletes your browser history when you die.
- tlrobinson 12y ago
  Relevant: http://www.snotr.com/video/3806/Porn_Buddies http://www.snotr.com/video/3806/Porn_Buddies

jmathai 12y ago

34 words; Inactive Account Manager is used 4 times. Representing 35% of the message.

rb9999 12y ago
HN title: 4 words (including appended domain). Inactive Account Manager is used 1 time. Representing 75% of the message. The more you write, the lower that percentage that should drop to. 35% of 34 words is fair.

SeanKilleen 12y ago

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. A fantastic tool, even if it's filling me with existential dread having to write these messages to my loved ones. A really elegant solution to the "Dead man switch". I'm glad Google thought to do this. It may be a small thing, but it did really matter to me.

planckscnst 12y ago

Wow, that was a surreal, emotionally moving experience. I recommend everyone to go through it even if you don't want to enable it.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ferongr 12y ago

The first time I navigated to that page (by accident, I was exploring my Google account settings) I sat there looking at the screen puzzled. It took me almost 5 minutes to realize that this nebulous description actually meant the passing of the account owner. Couldn't they label it more clearly?