This is a Guest Post by William Eve. Discover more about Digital Wills with this page from Life Insurance Finder exploring Digital Death.

Many experts explain that a Digital Will is an extension of your 'Last Will and Testament', and that once that document is complete, adding the important digital and Internet information to this Will, completes it, making it an all encompassing document for which your assets and personal information will be disbursed and accessed upon your death.

Others say that creating a Digital Will, will replace the paper will, because IT (information technology) professionals predict that in the next 5 to 10 years, paper will become completely obsolete - almost as obsolete as it is now. Most people do their banking, correspondence, investing, even socializing, and most everything else on the net.


The conclusion? This is a new concept – and some argue that neither concept is right or wrong, and that nothing is written in stone. It all comes down to how much information you retain on the Internet, and how you wish to handle the ramifications of death and your legacy. It is basically up to you.
The question is – how much can your family and loved ones access should something accidentally happen, or you die without a will? How will they find important information and gain access to this information?

There was a U.S. soldier who died in Iraq, his name was Justin Mark Ellsworth, and after his death his father wanted access to his Yahoo email account. Yahoo would not grant him access even after offering them a certified Death Certificate.

The father took Yahoo to court, and was eventually granted access after a court decided to give it to him. However, it is clear that it took this man an act of congress to simply access an email account belonging to his son.

Accessing a deceased person's email to contact friends of the death, or trying to gain other important information, with all of the security measures in place today, could be completely impossible without the proper roadmap. A digital will is a roadmap to the information you keep on your computer and Internet.


Digital Legacy:

Death is a given, we are all facing the same reality, but with the new norms of our digital culture, we are not prepared to ask, what happens to my digital and Internet life if I die?

What a digital legacy is is a mass amount of digital data left behind after you die. It is the information you have uploaded and stored on Facebook and Flickr; it is your bank accounts that are solely accessed online. It can be documents you've written and saved in your documents folder; or photos of family and friends you've taken and placed on the Internet, somewhere in cyberspace.

It can be all of your friends email addresses and contact information, as well as investments you've made online, and on and on.

Work documents, important passwords, love letters, family videos, your will and many other things can be a part of this digital legacy.

A Digital legacy is everything that you have accumulated, created and stored in the digital world.


Digital Undertaker:

Well, this is a new term to most people – and it seems fairly obvious as to what the meaning is, however, let's discuss just exactly what a digital undertaker is, and what they do.

According to Death and Digital Legacy.com; Australia: Unwitting Law Firms and Digital Undertakers: "As technologies move so quickly, the law is often slow to keep up. In the U.S., some law firms are advising their clients to leave instructions on their digital selves in their wills. But, not here in Australia - We spoke to ten firms, and none of them had even thought about it yet. But, they did all say, 'Thanks for the heads up.'"

Apparently the concept is so new, it's barely had a chance to take hold, however, as we see our digital and Internet lives increase in volume, it's very possible we will begin to get advertisements from digital undertakers in the very near future.

But, for today, as much as we know about digital undertakers is that these people take care of our digital selves after we are gone. Something like a burial of sorts.

You choose an undertaker, and that person will hold the keys to your digital life; passwords, websites with your data stored; email accounts; social networking profiles and passwords, user ID's, personal questions for access to banking and PayPal sites, and everything else that defines you as a digital person.

A digital undertaker could be a company, or an individual, however, everyone that has any presence on
the Internet, blog sites or anywhere else, should absolutely have a contact for storing this information.

Otherwise, your data and Internet presence could live on for years.


Everlasting Digital Life:

Many sites, such as Facebook, will shut down your account after a specific period of non-use, and usually when the information is obtained that you are deceased. Now, Facebook actually allows a 'memorial' period for your profile, in which your online friends are privy to your passing, as well as allowed posts of condolence.

But the rest of your life, online banking accounts, investment accounts, Flickr and Photo sites, as well as online document storage sites could and just might live on forever.

This is why it is a very good idea to have a digital undertaker. This someone is a person who will actually go in, and de-activate, as well as delete your online presence.

That way, someday when your kids are grown, and perform a Google search on you, they won't find things that you would rather they not see. The things that should be left to your children or close family members should be assembled in a photo album or scrapbook, or be given access to specific sites.

The rest of your digital life should be buried, along with you.

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