Don’t wait: Plan for your online afterlife now

PORTLAND, Ore. - In this age of Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, many of us put a lot of information online, but what happens to all that stuff when we die?

We've heard from people who say, “I won't care what happens to my stuff online, I'll be dead.”

But your loved ones do because they're the ones who have to try to take care of unfinished business when you're gone.

So what happens to your online life after you die?

The answer depends on what you have and where it is. Experts say now is the time for you to figure that out.

“Get a handle on how you want this, if you want to create a mess or leave a mess, then don’t do anything,” says Jeff Cheyne, an estate planning attorney.

Many Internet service providers will not give your password to anyone after you die.

Internet businessman Jeremy Toeman owns web domains worth tens of thousands of dollars.

“I’ve taken 8,000 pictures of my kids since birth, and they are all on Flickr,” he says. “So I realized that my wife had no idea where those things were in our lives.”

So he started Legacy Locker, which stores your asset information and gives it to someone you designate after death.

Victoria Blachly, who works at a Portland estate planning firm, treasures her niece's Facebook page after she died in a car crash.

“Virtual assets can also have an emotional value that’s priceless,” she says.

Digital death coverage is a growing business. There are websites that help you bequeath your accounts to others and inform your online friends that you’re dead.

Deathswitch checks up on you by e-mail. If you don’t answer in a time period you designate it sends out your passwords and final instructions.

But “just because it’s quick and easy, doesn’t mean it’s the right way to do it,” says Blachly.

Some in estate planning say they believe the web services can be risky, and they’re also a target for hackers. Additionally, they can be confusing because they use legal-sounding terms that may make you think they have legal power that they do not.

Some estate planners recommend using a flash drive to store your virtual asset information and to keep it in a fireproof, locked file cabinet, a safe, or a safety deposit box.

Thinking about what to do with your online life may be the furthest thing from your mind but in this new world, the more we live online, the more we leave online when we die.

Check out the things you need to think about when it comes to virtual assets by going here.