Account Advisory

If I should die before I wake, my Facebook password my husband should take. Oh, and an auto-reply message on my Gmail he should make, but my Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, and PayPal accounts he may forsake …

OK, this isn’t exactly a cheerful way to kickoff the New Year, but an awful lot is at stake. For all the advice I give about building up and maintaining your online identity, we’ve never discussed what happens to it when you’re gone.

For the majority of us, our online selves will stop breathing when we do. Over time, like any inactive account, they may be deleted. Many folks are just fine with all of that. But if you are like me, and your hobbies, finances, photos, connections, and professional portfolio are online, you’ll want someone to take care of business for you.

I certainly don’t want folks to try and friend me on Facebook without a clue that I’m gone, or think I’m ignoring their email, or that I’m refusing to respond to a Twitter @ reply. Nor do I want folks to think I just stopped taking care of my blog. 

As a communicator, I would want someone to explain that I’m “no longer with us” — and then delete my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts (please!), move my Facebook page into “memorializing” status, take down my Web site, etc.

If you are a fellow control freak, you’ll turn to your spouse or significant other right now and say, “Hey, here’s my password. When I’m gone, delete those, keep this, memorialize that.” He’ll turn to you and say, “Um, yeah. OK.”

If you prefer a little more privacy, check out LegacyLocker.com. Think of it as an online safety deposit box. For $30 a year or a one-time $300 payment, you can securely enter your online passwords, social networking info, and account numbers. Then, choose a few folks you trust to be your “beneficiaries,” and upon the event of your passing, they will inform LegacyLocker, and your passwords will be handed over to them (with proper proof, of course).

Other Websites like AssetLock and DeathSwitch offer similar services.

Much ado about nothing? Well, consider the various ways you do business and pleasure online:
 
Email
According to Jack Cola at productivity Web site MakeUseOf.com, if you haven’t shared your passwords with your next of kin, Hotmail and Gmail will grant access to your account as long as proof of death is provided. However, Yahoo! will only allow kin to delete your account; they will not grant access to anyone. 
 
Social Networking
Twitter and MySpace share Yahoo!’s approach: if your next of kin doesn’t know your password, they won’t hand it over. They’ll only delete your accounts. MySpace will, however, delete “objectionable” content upon request.

Facebook won’t share passwords either, but unlike Myspace, when presented with an obituary, Facebook will allow your account to be placed into “memorializing” status. This means your profile will be taken out of search results, but your wall will remain active. Only current friends may post to it, though, and new friend requests won’t be granted unless your kin has your password and can “confirm” new friends on your behalf.
 
Finance
Things get more complicated with online finances. PayPal and eBay will likely ask to speak to your lawyer. And even if your kin can guess the password, banks and investment sites may require answers to additional security questions and identification above and beyond basic login, which your next of kin may not know.

Like any bank, online financial institutions can’t just take someone’s word for it that you would have wanted them to have access to your eTrade stocks or INGDirect savings account, even if they do have proof they are your spouse, mother, or child.

Clearly, you must protect your personal information and passwords, and I’m not telling you to share them with just anyone. If the thought of data dumping makes you uncomfortable, at the very least, take five minutes to type up, sign, and date your Web wishes, spelling out who should be allowed to gain access to your profiles, if anyone.
Mortality is never fun to think about, but as our lives move from paper to pixels, the maintenance/disposal/distribution of our digital assets has never been more important.