What Happens to Your Online Profiles After You Die?
October 28th, 2009 | 317 viewsA recent Time magazine article raises a very important issue in today’s world, where a growing number of people have a significant online presence: What happens to your online profiles after you die? As you think about how to plan for your future, and prepare your family in the event that something happens to you, this is an important area to consider.
The first thing to think about is whether or not you want your social networking profiles to remain. If you prefer to keep it as an online memorial, you might want to document your passwords, and also make your loved ones aware of your desires.
Although there is not a specific section for social networking profiles in Peace of Mind For You and Your Loved Ones: The Complete Guide to Organizing Your Estate, you could certainly document your passwords, and add a page indicating your instructions to your workbook. It would also be helpful to list contact information for each profile, whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or any number of other sites. Be sure to update this list periodically.
Different sites have different policies and procedures on how to handle this, so make sure you learn about each sites policy. For example, Facebook requires family or friends to complete a Facebook form, including a link to an obituary or other information confirming a user’s death.
If you want your profiles to be taken down, then document that, too. Facebook has indicated it would honor requests to remove the profiles of a deceased user. Be sure to check each site’s policy.
How to handle the profiles of deceased users is a new area for social networking sites, and also a new area of estate planning. As with other aspects of your estate, it’s important to be aware of changes that require consideration, discussion with loved ones, and documentation.
Read the original Time magazine story.
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