VOA慢速英語: New Laws Needed to Deal With Users’ Digital Legacies

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

這里是美國之音慢速英語科技報道。

Benjamin Stassen took his own life in twenty-ten. His parents thought their twenty-one year old son was happy. Since his suicide, they have attempted to learn why he killed himself.

2010年，本杰明·斯塔森(Benjamin Stassen)結束了自己的生命。他父母曾以為自己21歲的兒子非常幸福。兒子自殺以后，他們曾試圖了解他自殺的原因。

Alice and Jay Stassen thought Benjamin's Facebook account might hold clues to his suicide. But the account does not belong to them, nor did it belong to their son. Facebook owns everything in his account. That is what the company says in its user agreement.

愛麗絲和杰伊·斯塔森(Alice and Jay Stassen，即斯塔森夫妻)認為本杰明的Facebook帳戶可能有他自殺的線索。但該帳戶不屬于他們，也不屬于自己的兒子。Facebook擁有他賬戶的一切，這是該公司用戶協議中提出的。

Jay Stassen says he found it difficult even to communicate with Facebook.

杰伊·斯塔森說，他發(fā)現甚至與Facebook溝通都很難。

JAY STASSEN: "If you search on the home page of Facebook for an email address, a mailing address, a phone number, a contact person to assist in a situation like we've been in, you will find a dearth of information.

杰伊·斯塔森：“如果你在Facebook主頁上查找該公司協助處理像我們這種狀況的的郵件地址、郵寄地址、電話號碼、聯系人，你會發(fā)現缺乏這類信息。”

A court ordered the company to let the Stassens see their son's account. However, Facebook has yet to obey the order.

法庭命令該公司允許杰伊·斯塔森查看他兒子的賬戶。然而Facebook尚未服從該命令。

Thirty-four-year-old Mac Tonnies died in his sleep in two thousand nine. He left behind a lot of online friends, many of whom liked his futuristic blog, "Post-Human Blues." Work on the blog stopped when he died. A short time later, the comments area was filled with unwanted advertising. That angered his friend Dia Sobin.

2009 年，34歲的麥克·滕尼斯(Mac Tonnies)在睡夢中去世，身后留下了很多網上好友，其中許多人喜歡他的未來派博客---后人類布魯斯(Post-Human Blues)。他去世后博客停止了更新。很短時間后，評論區(qū)被不受歡迎的廣告填滿。這激怒了他的朋友Dia Sobin。

DIA SOBIN: "It's really like a desecration to find spam in that comment section in that blog, which basically has become almost like a virtual burial plot."

DIA SOBIN：“在這個基本已經成為虛擬墓地的博客的評論區(qū)發(fā)現垃圾郵件信息真是褻瀆神靈。”

Lawyer John Boucher stays informed about digital rights and the law. But he admits that he and his wife have signed many user agreements without reading them. He says he would not know how to get information from his wife's accounts if she dies.

約翰·鮑徹(John Boucher)律師了解數字權利和法律。但他承認，他和妻子在沒有閱讀前就簽署了很多用戶協議。他說，如果妻子去世，他不知道如何獲得妻子的賬戶信息。

JOHN BOUCHER: "I have no clue. So there is a dual problem here. One is people don't think about it. And two, even if they did, they might find they are legally barred from doing it. I personally think what's gonna happen over time is there are going to be model laws drafted to deal with all these circumstances. But they're gonna take years to be accepted by the states, you know. There's going to be a gray area for the foreseeable future."

鮑徹：“我沒有頭緒。這有兩個問題。一是人們沒去想過，二是即使他們想過可能也會發(fā)現法律禁止他們這么做。我個人認為，隨著時間推移，會起草示范性的法律來處理所有這類情況，但需要很多年時間才能被各州接受。你知道，就可預見的未來而言，這將會是一個灰色地帶。”

Some businesses now are offering people a way to control what happens to their online information after they die. One way to do this is to place your online accounts and passwords in a digital storage area. You give the owners of the area orders about which information to destroy and which to give others when you die.

一些企業(yè)目前為人們提供了一種途徑，來處理去世后的自己的網上信息。辦法之一是將你的網上賬戶和密碼保存到一個數字存儲區(qū)域，并給這個存儲區(qū)域的所有人下令，在自己去世后，哪些信息銷毀，哪些信息提供給他人。

Mark Plattner was one of Mac Tonnie's friends. He recently used a program called Sitesucker to download Mac's blog. He then uploaded a copy of the blog to a new web site under his control. Mark Plattner says we should all plan our own digital legacy. He says "don't be passive -- get to work on your online afterlife now."

馬克·普拉特納(Mark Plattner)是麥克·滕尼斯(Mac Tonnies)的朋友之一。他最近使用一個名為Sitesucker的程序下載了麥克的博客，然后將博客副本上傳到自己控制下的一個新網站上。普拉特納表示，我們都應該規(guī)劃自己的數字遺產。他表示，“不要被動--現在開始耕耘你的網上后世吧。”