This is a simple question and we wish there was a simple answer. Unfortunately there isn’t a standard way that Internet users can expect service providers to handle their accounts after death. Every provider has a “terms of service” (the legalese) that governs your account. Unfortunately for consumers, no two are alike.

We cover this pretty extensively in the second half of our book, Your Digital Afterlife, but here’s a quick run down of some popular providers and what happens at each:

• Facebook
• Gmail
• Twitter
• Yahoo
• YouTube

Facebook

Facebook covers the rights of deceased users in its privacy policy.

Your heirs can request that your account be deleted or “memorialized.” Memorialized profiles restrict profile access to confirmed friends, and allow friends and family to write on the user’s Wall in remembrance. You shouldn’t count on it staying active since anyone can request that it be memorialized by simply notifying Facebook and showing a death certificate or a news article that indicates your death.

Facebook has also introduced a new feature that allows you to “Download Your Information” This tool lets you download a copy of your photos, videos, wall posts, messages, friends list and other content. The file that you download can be opened in your browser so you can navigate through your content.

Gmail

Gmail provides instructions for gaining access to deceased user’s account in its help documents. They outline the steps to gaining access, which include a death certificate, and email you have received from the account in question and proof that you have legal authority over the estate.

Twitter

Twitter addresses this issue in its help documents:

If we are notified that a Twitter user has passed away, we can remove their account or assist family members in saving a backup of their public Tweets.
Please contact us with the following information:

1. Your full name, contact information (including email address), and your relationship to the deceased user.
2. The username of the Twitter account, or a link to the profile page of the Twitter account.
3. A link to a public obituary or news article.

Twitter is unique in that they offer survivors an archive of the user’s public Tweets. That’s actually very helpful as it’s often difficult to archive a Twitter account yourself.

Yahoo

Yahoo (which owns services like Flickr and Delicious) includes the following paragraph in its terms:

No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability. You agree that your Yahoo! account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted.

Yahoo takes a harsh stance on death, but the good news is that they will not take this action without the receipt of a death certificate. It’s possible for you to ask your digital executor to archive your Yahoo account contents before presenting Yahoo with a death certificate.

YouTube

YouTube also lists their policy for deceased users in its help documents.

If an individual has passed away and you need access to the content of his or her YouTube account, please fax or mail us the following information:

1. Your full name and contact information, including a verifiable email address.
2. The YouTube account name of the individual who passed away.
3. A copy of the death certificate of the deceased.
4. A copy of the document that gives you Power of Attorney over the YouTube account.
5. If you are the parent of the individual, please send us a copy of the Birth Certificate if the YouTube account owner was under the age of 18. In this case, Power of Attorney is not required.

We’ve received lots of interest from the funeral profession regarding digital estate planning. It’s a natural fit, but until I talked with Ryan Thogmartin from ConnectingDirectors.com, I wasn’t quite sure how we could help funeral directors. Unfortunate it may be, but it might be too late to secure the digital possessions belonging to their clientele. In our discussion Ryan and I brainstormed ways that funeral professionals could raise digital estate planning issues within their community. Here are a few ideas:

Include information in pre-need planning

Pre-need planning is a great opportunity to talk with individuals about their estate plans digital and otherwise. In fact, according to a Lawyers.com study released in February, 2010 only 35% of Americans report having a will. I’m certain far less have considered their digital possessions.

Provide advice to family members

Funeral homes often prepare tribute videos and other remembrance items that require photos. At this stage funeral professionals could provide advice to family members for how to access the digital files of the deceased. This could be accessing photos stored locally on a computer or on sites like Flickr and Facebook. Of course, this is a bit after-the-fact, but there’s an opportunity to help guide them through finding and securing these assets.

Be an advocate in your community

Funeral professionals are often well connected and respected in their communities. Whether its speaking, writing or simply bringing up the topic when the occasion is right, there’s an opportunity here to raise awareness about this issue amongst those who may not have considered it before.

These are just a few ideas we discussed during our call. If you think of others, please leave them in the comments.

Photo by MudflapDC

Shortly after Your Digital Afterlife went to press in October my grandmother passed away at 83. I was fortunate to spend much of her final week at her bedside. In the days that followed her passing I experienced digital legacy first hand. So in the spirit of our book, and in her memory, allow me to share those with you.

Mable Hewett - 1927-2010

As we were preparing for Grandma’s funeral my Mother stopped by my childhood bedroom, in which I had set up a makeshift office for the week. She said, “Now there’s one person who didn’t have a digital legacy to worry about.” I thought for a moment, suspecting she was correct, but then glanced down at my computer screen and responded, “Have you been on Facebook today?”

It occurred to me that the my wall and those of several family members contained an outpouring of support from friends. Many of the people who never even knew my Grandmother. Facebook was where I had turned the previous evening to tell my friends of the sad news. Their support was unbelievably valuable to me and, at least in some small way, a part of my Grandmother’s legacy. I have to wonder if Facebook posts and emails will someday become the replacement for cards and flowers. I suspect that we’ll have both and that both will be equally as meaningful in the grieving process. I know it was for me.

Later that day we began preparing photos to submit to the funeral home for a tribute slide show. Mom pulled out several boxes of photos and we began to go through them. It was a great trip down memory lane and when it was finished I said “I’ve got more.” I opened up iPhoto and began to look through photos from Grandma’s birthday party, just three weeks earlier, and from countless other family events. My sister looked through Facebook at the same time. We compiled the photos into a new album and I fetched a USB drive that we could put them on and send to the funeral home. I also took a moment to teach my aunt how to email photos from her BlackBerry and she contributed a few. Meanwhile my Mother found a printed photo of my Grandmother and her brothers and sisters and said, “Evan, you took this one.” Not finding it on my MacBook I found a book of old CD-R discs and pulled out one labeled “Backup Spring 2003.” I didn’t find the photo she mentioned, in fact I never did, but I did find several others that we added to the album. As I placed the files on the USB drive, I started to think about how we compiled all of these photos. Some of them came from my hard drive, others from Facebook, CDs and even a mobile phone.

For someone who barely understood what we were doing on “that computer” all of the time, we compiled an impressive set of digital memories. And if it wasn’t for the need to submit photos for this slide show, they may have never come together in one place. I’ve opened that iPhoto album several times since that day and it’s availability to me at all times right here on my laptop is comforting. It’s a place I can go to remember and honor her.

So this post is for you, Grandma. While you didn’t have any digital things of your own, our photos and messages are a very important part of your legacy. We treasure them deeply and I hope that others realize the importance of their digital things through this story.

John Romano and Evan Carroll will be leading a panel at the 2011 SXSW Interactive festival. “You’re dead. Your data isn’t. What happens now?” will explore digital death and legacy from several perspectives.

Here’s the description of the event:
The Web has changed your life, your death and what you leave behind. Your heirlooms like photos, videos and letters are now stored in digital form and—in many cases—on servers that you don’t own like those of Flickr, YouTube and Gmail. What should happen to your “legacy” data? With over 285,000 Facebook users set to die this year, you really should think about it. The Internet generation is coming of age and this issue is only growing. We have to respond with new legal frameworks and standards to support this change. The good news is that entrepreneurs, attorneys, archivists and scholars are already working on solutions. Join us to learn what happens to your digital life after you die and what’s being done to give you a say in it.

Learn more at the SXSW panelpicker website.

Our panelists

We would like to introduce our panelists:

John Romano

John is one of the earliest scholars of the digital afterlife. He started his research in 2008 and has written and presented extensively on the topic. He co-founded the first website devoted to this topic, thedigitalbeyond.com, and is in the process of writing the first book on this topic, to be released later this year. As an Internet professional John brings a high level of technical and social understanding to this topic.

Evan Carroll

Evan Carroll is co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife” (2010 New Riders Press) and creator of TheDigitalBeyond.com. An experience designer and researcher by trade, he is also completing graduate studies at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. He is a recognized leader in the digital afterlife arena as a frequent speaker and media source. He lends his cultural and archival expertise to the panel.

Dazza Greenwood

Dazza Greenwood has focused his career on creating legislation and policy to support use of the Internet and enable online identity. He was previously a lecturer and researcher of law and technology at MIT and the MIT Media Lab where he developed identity, privacy, transactional and architectural solutions. Dazza runs the consultancy CIVICS.com, has led several open standards efforts and currently is helping to start up the eCitizen Foundation. Dazza brings his expertise in law, policy and online identity to the panel.

Adele McAlear

Adele McAlear is exploring the relationship between death, social media and technology through research, speaking and her blog at DeathAndDigitalLegacy.com. Her expertise has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other international media. An early adopter of social media and a technology enthusiast, Adele was named one of the Top 10 Most Influential Women in Social Media in Canada and is an experienced integrated marketing consultant based in Montréal.

Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman is the founder and CEO of Legacy Locker, the first online service dedicated to helping people create wills for their online assets and identity.  He is a serial entrepreneur, with successful consumer lifestyle technology ventures at Sling Media and Mediabolic, and has also consulted with numerous top-tier consumer businesses.  He is also a well-known thought leader in the technology industry, and a frequent speaker at conferences and other events. Jeremy brings a business and entrepreneurial perspective to the panel.