This isn’t something I had thought about before, but I just saw an article titled Tools for Managing Your Online Life After Death.

What happens to your Hotmail or Gmail account when you die? What about your online photo collections on Picasa or Flickr?

Answer: It depends. And some of it depends on you!

To give you an idea:

• Hotmail let’s relatives order a CD of all messages in the deceased users account on submission of a death certificate and proof of power of attorney.
   
• Gmail requires the same paperwork plus a copy of an e-mail that the deceased sent to the person who is requesting the information. (See how it can depend on you?)
   
• Facebook lets family members decide whether to take down a deceased user’s profile or keep it in a memorial state for confirmed friends to see.
   
• Flickr keeps deceased users’ photo-storage sites but prevents access to any photos marked as private.

–These aren’t things most of us would normally think about, but probably something we should pay attention to!

I realize I need, at least, to send an e-mail to one or two of my relatives so they can close my Gmail account when I die!

What preparations do you need to make?

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

 |  Email This Post  |  Print This Post  |  Subscribe to It!
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 6:32 pm and is filed under estate planning, legacy planning, settling an estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.