LOOKING AHEAD
of
Your Digital
Afterlife
and thewebsiteTheDigitalBeyond
.com. “People rush into technologieshead-
first, and they’re sharing like there’sno to-
morrow. But they’renot thinking about it
in termsof, ‘Howwould I get thismaterial
tomychildrenafterI’mgone?’ ”
For individualswith substantial online
business interests, the stakes are higher.
“Evenifyouareverysavvyandtech-oriented
andhave lotsof[digital]assets, likedomain
names, it’s almost certain that youhaven’t
done anything to protect yourself,” says
Steven J.J.Weisman, an estate-planning
attorney inCambridge,Mass.,who lectures
about financial planning andestate lawat
BentleyUniversity. “[Clients] say, ‘Wow, I
can’tbelieveIdidn’tthinkaboutthat.’”
-
preservation hasn’t caught on with the
masses maybe for the same reason that
“regular”estateplanninghasn’tpermeated
our collective consciousness (amazingly,
more thanhalf theadultpopulation in the
U.S. lacks awill; Romanoestimates thefig-
uremaybe65percent). “Given the choice,
most of uswouldprefernot to thinkabout
ourmortalityuntilwehaveto,”saysJeremy
Toeman, co-founder of Legacy Locker, a
well-regardedonline repositoryof digital
assets. “It’snoteasy togetaregularperson
to take a fewminutes out of his day todo
somethingmorbid.”Mostly,though,thelack
of digital-estateplanning canbe traced to
a lackof awareness.Whilea few incidents
spotlightpotentialhazardsandabuses—the
national and internationalmediaseizedon
JustinEllsworth, aMarine killed in Iraq
whose family suedYahoo! for access tohis
emailaccount—mostindividualsfigurethat
surviving family and friends canpiece to-
getherthedigitalpuzzlewithoutassistance.
Theseindividualsclearlyhaven’tattempted
toparse the impenetrablepolicies of enti-
ties likeFacebook,whichhasanoption for
“memorializingaccounts.”
So how does one set about organiz-
ing, planning or otherwisebequeathing a
digital estate? First, inventory anything
andeverything that anexecutormightnot
Whilemostofusassume that
nothingdieson the Internet, the
reality is farmorecomplicated.
easilyfind rifling throughyourfilecabinet.
This should include assets obvious (email
accounts, blogs, financial accounts gone
paperless, Twitter andother social-media
tchotchkes) and less so (photos andother
media stored in the cloud, domainnames,
propertywithinvideogames,virtualworlds
likeSecondLife). After that, thewould-be
digitalaccountantshouldcreatealistofuser
namesandpasswordsassociatedwitheach
asset (donot put these inawill,which is a
public document). Finally, the list should
bemadeaccessibletoatrustedfamilymem-
ber, friend or attorney, completewith de-
tailed instructions, suchasdomainnames
needtoberenewedannually.
ContinuedfromPage34•
AA.COM/AMERICANWAY
APRIL 15, 2012
39
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