I expect most of you haven't even thought about doing a normal written Will yet. Have you got one yet?

But have you thought about a digital will?

This was a subject raised in a magazine article I read this month and it got me thinking that I should really do a digital will of my own just in case the worst happened.

What is a digital will? Think of your online life. You probably have email accounts, webmail accounts, ebay and paypal accounts, maybe some other accounts for websites or forums you belong to. If you were to die what would happen to them all? And how would your family and friends be able to access them? Or do they even know about them?

The worst has to be email and Paypal. If you have some money in a Paypal account you need to know the login details to access the account, and also to transfer this money into your normal bank account. If you died without leaving the login details how would your family gain access to the account to retrieve the money you have left in there?

Equally if you have a web email account such as Hotmail does your family know the email address? and the password? Some of your friends email addresses to contact them might only be stored in that account.

And your home email accounts. Again you may have contact lists setup in your email application for some of your friends and these might be the only current list of email addresses and phone numbers you have for some of them. Does your family have access to the computer they are on?

Equally, what about any online accounts or content you have? or subscriptons to sites or services? If you died these would need to be cancelled or transferred to another person. Once you are dead any subscriptions would still be charged to your credit cards or direct debited from your account.

And finally websites and hosting accounts. For me this included hosting accounts that withdraw direct debits each month to pay for the hosting. These servers contain personal intellectual property you have created and own. What happens to it when you die? Who gets it? Do your family even know about these accounts and how they are setup and accessed? What they do and what they cost?

In addition there are domain names. More and more people own domain names. I own quite a few myself, registered for at least the next two years. Who owns those when I die? What happens to them?

I expect the answer to most of this is NO. Our online lives are quite fragmented and scattered across the world. If I were to die tomorrow my family wouldn't have a clue where to begin trying to find the information about my online life. The accounts, the website addresses to access them or what they contain.

I am therefore going to be creating a written document containing details of this online part of my life so that in the event of any unfortunate event my family and friends will know what is registered and owned by me online and they will be able to gain access to it and retrieve the data. And I think it is a good idea if we all do this before it is too late.

And don't worry. If anything were to happen to me I will be including details of administrator access to classicamiga and this forum that will be sent to key staff members so they can take over ownership and continue the site if they so wished.
[Reply]