This is Mur 
@mur2501 well, first and foremost, it's a tradition. at least the kind where it's a classified ad in the paper. i'm unsure of the origins, but the idea is to share the news of the person's death to people who may know about the person, but weren't close to the family. it's meant to honour the memory of the person in a place where everyone can see it. it makes more sense in small community local newspapers where families know about each other. i'm not sure it's a tradition that's going to stick, because no news sites do it, except for celebrities (because that's newsworthy).
@thor
Well if you pay good then any newssite will do it
@mur2501 no, at least not here in Norway. the best you'll get is editorial advertising, i.e. an article that the newspaper wrote, but is an advertisement and is clearly marked as such.
