LEGACY LOCKER HANDS OVER THE KEYS TO YOUR ONLINE LIFE WHEN YOU DIE
By Adam Pash
lifehacker.com
April 7, 2009
Original LinkIt's not all that exciting to think about, but what happens to your online bank account, email, Facebook account, blog, and the rest of your online presence when you cease to be?
Web site
Legacy passes on your "digital property" to your friends or loved ones should you die. At first blush, the idea sounds admittedly kind of absurd. But think about the hassle for your loved ones involved in finding contacts that should be notified of your death (email or Facebook), or the money sitting in your PayPal account with nobody around to claim it. None of this poses an insurmountable obstacle for your loved ones, but it'd all be a lot easier if the appropriate usernames and passwords were automatically handed over at your demise.
The service comes with several tiered accounts, from the free account -- which will store and hand over 3 "assets" (logins) to one "beneficiary" and send out one "legacy letter" (a farewell message to your loved one) to the $30 annual account, which gives you unlimited everything.
We appreciate what the service offers, and appreciate that Legacy Locker provides a service that may be worth some cash, but we can't help but think you could have Legacy Locker hand over the keys of your email, then provide instructions to finding an email you've prepared in your email account with further instructions for accessing what you couldn't fit into Legacy Locker. But we're cheap like that.
If you don't feel like handing over your logins (some of us would rather they self destruct) but like the idea of sending out emails from the grave, check out previously mentioned Death Switch (keep reading...).
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DEATH SWITCH SENDS OUT EMAILS UPON YOUR DEMISE
By Jason Fitzpatrick
lifehacker.com
March 16, 2009
Original LinkDo you want to be sure that your final messages and missives are heard?
Death Switch is a service which sends out emails upon your unfortunate demise.
Why would you want to do such a thing? The company's web site points out a variety of potential reasons, like not leaving your coworkers and family high and dry without important passwords or information and getting a secret off your chest now that you're gone. Over at the CNET news blog Technically Incorrect they highlight another potential use of the service: The ability to contact people you don't have real life contact with after your death. You could set up the service to send out emails to members of mailing lists, gaming guilds, discussion boards, and other virtual communities you participate in.
The basic service is free and includes a single email. The pay service, $20 a year, allows you to compose up to 30 emails with 10 recipients each. Only the pay service allows you to include attachments. Death Switch determines when to send out the messages by sending out messages to you on a regular basis. If you fail to respond to enough of those messages in a row, the emails are mailed out. What say you dear readers? A novel way to wrap up your virtual life after death or a bit too creepy?