(CNN) — Your husband, an avid gamer and techie, dies of a heart attack, leaving his vast online life – one you don’t know much about – in limbo.
Eternal Space lets loved ones create customized online gravesites and memorial pages.
Eternal Space lets loved ones create customized online gravesites and memorial pages.
His accounts, to which you don’t know the passwords, go idle. His e-mails go unanswered, his online multiplayer games go on without him and bidders on his eBay items don’t know why they can’t get an answer from the seller.
Web site domains that he has purchased, some of which are now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, will expire, and you may never know.
It’s a scenario that’s becoming more likely as we spend more of our lives online. And it’s raising more questions about what happens to our online lives after we log off for the final time.
The answer, until recently, was nothing.
But now, as online usage increases and social-media sites soar in popularity, more companies are popping up to try and fill that void created in your digital life after death.
Jeremy Toeman, founder of the site Legacy Locker, recognized that when he was on a plane and wondered what would happen to his online life if it crashed. While his will leaves everything to his wife, including all of his digital assets, Toeman realized how difficult it would be for her to access his accounts.