German firm develops Internet eraser for photos
A German firm is poised to launch software allowing users to have photos uploaded to websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Flickr erased automatically after a certain time, its head said Wednesday.
The software should prevent the increasingly frequent occurrence of someone being refused a job or running into other embarrassing difficulties after posting a photo that maybe should have been kept private.
Before the user posts the photo, he or she drags it into the programme which assigns it an electronic key that is valid for a limited time period, said Michael Backes, founder of X-Pire. If someone wishes to view that photo later, the server checks whether the photo has "expired" and blocks it from being displayed if its time is up.
