CyberWorld Estate Planning

What to do with my Facebook or twitter account after I die has never been a priority to me.  Surely it does not keep the rest of the population up at night, but let’s face it, social networking is something that has become so prevalent that it is almost like a piece of your life could be preserved in the heaven or hell of cyberspace.  What do you want to do with your page, all your pictures, the 369 friends that you don’t ever contact but still send a “Happy Birthday” once a year.  Now that you are dead that doesn’t really matter all that much, but to your loved ones, human friends, family, and Facebook friends they are left with a difficult situation.  First off if you are a privacy and security buff then there is no way they are going to hack into your account and delete your profile.  That is why Estate Planning in a cyber world can be an overlooked but crucial step in whole of things.  This is a brand new market, and in all honesty, an essential part of every will.

A typical computer user has around 3 or 4 widely used passwords, security questions, and usernames.  This means that unless someone knows the sites you belong to, your email addresses, the banks you login to, and the passwords in your list, they are hopeless to try and find and close out all your online activities.  Think of it like this, when you die, you don’t want someone to just let you dog starve to death because you have a lock on your gate.  We need to make sure someone can open that lock and give Fido a bone and a new home.

For all potential clients, estate planning should be a priority.  Estate planning is not just for the elderly who are worried about dividing their assets prior to death, estate planning is for everyone, young and old.  So in conjunction with everything else you need to provide you attorney with, compile a list of social networks, online banking site, auto bill pay sites, or any other websites they visit, login to, pay money, etc.  I suggest you set a piece of paper next to your computer, and for two weeks jot down all the sites you visit and all of the usernames and passwords.  After you compile the list, type it up, choose a responsible, technologically savvy personal representative, and add specific directions for each site.  In addition to computer literacy make sure your personal representative should is trustworthy and willing to do your bidding while you are in the afterlife.  Who knows, you may want someone to continue tweeting as a ghost writer, or perhaps put in a DNR on your Facebook, or even send an eerie posthumous message to your mother.