New Digital Asset Planning Websites, But Beware of Potential Hazards

Adding to prior posts, the following is a list of previously unreported websites that offer assistance in sending parting messages or making one’s digital assets available to loved ones after death:

• DataInherit
• Entrustet
• Parting Wishes
• My Last Email
• If I Die

While these websites have the potential to be very useful, they could also cause problems.  Aside from security concerns related to online data storage, at least one of these websites also offers do-it-yourself online will writing and drafting of other legal documents.  The following excerpt from Michael S. Rosenwald, Web sites let online lives outlast the dearly departed, Wash. Post, Jan. 25, 2010, points out a feature of one website that could also lead to potential problems:

With Deathswitch.com, if users don’t respond to regular e-mails to confirm that they are still alive, the site gets increasingly worried about them, sending notes that nearly beg for a reply: “Please log on using the link below to demonstrate that you are still alive.” If users don’t respond within a set period of time, “postmortem” e-mails stored in their account are delivered.

The missives could be basic information, such as e-mail passwords sent to a girlfriend or banking data to relatives — or more emotionally explosive notes that tell a spouse or friend what couldn’t be said during life.

See Michael S. Rosenwald,Web sites let online lives outlast the dearly departed, Wash. Post, Jan. 25, 2010.  

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this to my attention.