Now that most of us have so many online accounts I was wondering what happens to these when we pass away or become incapacitaded; NPR just answered me questions. Last Monday Omar Gallaga, of All Tech Considered ran an entire show on these issues. For instance the show explained that different email providers treat your email differently. Google and Yahoo say your email account is private properly and if your in-laws want access to the account, they will need legal documents to do so. Other providers are apparently less protective.
This brought up issues of how we should prepare for the future, and some of the people being interviews were explaining that these days we should include information, and passwords to our online account in a will or other similar document. This brought up the company Legacy Locker, a company that, for a fee, will store all your online information and grant access to those you authorize.
This approach makes sense, especially since we are likely to leave behind not only personal email accounts, but public accounts such as facebook pages, and some of us have blogs, online companies, and many other accounts with sensitive information.