Tending to Your Digital Remains

Tending to Your Digital Remains is a dead interesting post on a topic I have asked the same question about – what happens when you die.

First you need to make sure you hand on the keys (passwords)

At least three companies — AssetLock.net, Legacy Locker, and the charmingly named Deathswitch.com — have arisen to keep customers’ passwords, usernames, final messages, and so on in a virtual safe-deposit box. After you’re gone, these companies carry out last wishes, alert friends, give account access to various designated beneficiaries, and generally parse out and pass on your online assets. Digital remains that are not bequeathed to an inheritor are incinerated, closing the book on PayPal accounts, profiles, even alternate identities (especially alternate identities: You don’t want your mother knowing about, or worse, playing, the wife-swapping giant badger you became in Second Life).

A second post on the same topic is Logging out after snuffing out  - which is much more about what happens to your digital data, domains and do you want appoint a digital executor to take care of online assets after death?