What happens to your online accounts after you decease?
Monday 7th of September 2009
Have you ever wondered what happens to your online accounts after you die(deceased)? Here are some of the solutions to that.
1. E-Mail
Hotmail lets relatives order a CD of all the messages in a deceased user’s account if they provide a death certificate and proof of power of attorney. Gmail requires the same paperwork plus a copy of an e-mail the deceased sent to the petitioner.
2.Social Networking
Facebook will follow a family’s wishes to take down a deceased user’s profile or keep it in a “memorial state,” which removes features like status updates and lets only confirmed friends view the profile and post comments on it.
3.Photo-Sharing
Photo-storage site Flickr will keep an account up and mostly open to the public, but if a user had marked any photos as private, the site won’t let family or friends into the account to access them.
4.Passwords
Several companies, like Legacy Locker, offer encrypted space to store passwords and other account information to give to designated recipients after a user dies. Each site has a system in place to verify a user’s death before distributing any digital assets.
(article from http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1920427,00.html)
