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I think this is a really interesting topic. What happens to things like your Facebook page etc. and any money and/or assets you earn in games like Second Life if you die?

[SPOILER]On 20 May 2010 an event known as "Digital Death Day" brought together the businesses of social networking, data management and death care. One of its organisers, Jennifer Holmes, says: "We have reached a critical mass of personal data online." She is referring to the billions of pages held by Facebook and other social networking sites, as well as blogs, online gaming sites... basically anything into which we put data... data which, in most cases, remains after we die.

So what should happen to it?

"There's no standard practice across the industry yet. There are no norms for how digital assets are passed on to heirs," says Kaliya Hamlin, another of Digital Death Day's organisers. And it could be the case that digital assets could have real-money value. Domain names can be sold for large sums of money and even Twitter accounts can be monetised with "sponsored tweets".

'Real money transactions'

Jesse Davis, co-founder of Entrustet, a company allowing the creation of a will for digital assets says: "There are two types of value stored in your online accounts, economic and sentimental... both types of assets need to be considered carefully in building a proper digital estate plan."

Indeed, some massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs) rely on real money transactions and with between 15 and 20 million users paying to play the games, it can be very lucrative. A virtual space station was sold for $330,000 on a game called Project Entropia, a world record for virtual transactions.

What would happen to this if you died?

"We have received several questions from users and request for guidelines on our policy and the manner in which they should regulate their own wills," says David Simmonds of Project Entropia, "but specific virtual items cannot be inherited by different persons - only the access rights to the account as a whole."

Tamer Asfahani of games website Incgamers.com, agrees that the user of the games has very few ownership rights over the things they earn and buy, or indeed the character they portray in the games. "Despite investing a huge amount of time into characters, players don't have any ownership rights to [them]," he says. "The publisher owns all rights to characters and as a player you technically rent this character and the world - as well as everything you acquire - from the publisher. "Therefore it's not your right to bequeath anyone your character and it's not something you can include in your will."

Digital presence

The internet is also becoming a place to remember the dead. "The online memorial already has become the new grave," says Jennifer Holmes. Death was not much in the minds of social networking pioneers when they started. Most sites were originally aimed at young college students. But with hundreds of millions of users worldwide now, (Facebook alone has over 400 million) death is a daily occurrence. So what are they doing about people's digital assests?

Social networking site MySpace policy says: "In order to respect the privacy of our users, MySpace does not allow anyone to assume control of a deceased user's profile.
"MySpace never deletes a profile for inactivity, but if a family requests that a profile be removed we will honour their request."

'Memorialisation'

When 21-year-old Bath University student "KJ" fell into the river Avon and drowned in 2009, his Facebook page remained. As news of the death spread, rest-in-peace messages started to appear on his wall. One of KJ's closest friends had heard of Facebook's "Memorialisation" feature, which allows existing friends continued access but blocks new ones and removes information such as contact details. He wrote to Facebook with proof of death and asked for this to be done. Friends now continue to write on the wall, even a year after the death. Facebook's European Director of Public Policy, Richard Allan describes this as "a new form of mourning".

Doctor Elaine Kasket, a counselling psychologist, has found that a surprising number of messages are written to the deceased as if they are still present and "logging on from some internet cafe in heaven". "It's perhaps the best example so far of continuing bonds after death," she says. There is perhaps a better sense of the living person on their remaining Facebook or MySpace page than anywhere else. It has been suggested that the existence of this online presence after people die, plus the accessibility of online memorials, could draw out the grieving process. But this may not be a bad thing, says Mark Dunn, a psychotherapist. He believes moost of us in the developed world do not grieve for long enough and that the internet "may allow us to learn the mechanics of grieving again."[/SPOILER]

There's not even any strict rules about what happens to money in your Paypal account and I find it interesting that games with purchasable items say that you are only renting it from them and it is still their property.

Also, what would you want to happen to your Facebook page and should there be a way to decide what happens upon death?

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When my friend's mum died of cancer, her facebook page was still on, and I
at first I felt bad about it,, cause I didn't know if I should stay friend with her or not. But then, I saw that people were living message on it, mostly her kids, telling her how much they needed her and how much she was gone too fast. And then people close to then would tell there that they are there is anything happens. I think it was kindda cute, but sad a the same time. But I changed my mind, and now I'm happy that her facebook page is still on, it's just like a place where you can talk to her.

They have the internet in Heaven and Hell.
People still use it after death. That's how addicted we are.

Seriously though, I don't really care what happens - I'll be dead, remember?

In my experience... when I had two friends die... Facebook did something to their accounts so that it wasn't "active" or whatever.. but you could still get to their page and write on their walls, view the pictures, etc.

I dunno, having the ability to still write on their walls is good... Its sad to read some of the comments though..

As for my facebook page... I dunno, I wouldn't really care. But I suppose I'd hope that it would be "memorialised" so people could still get to it and such.

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love."
- Washington Irving

I couldn't care less what happen to my Facebook when I die. xD

If I'm dying, Face-book is the last thing I'd be worried about...

One of my friends brothers died 2 years ago. He was only 18 and it was a massive shock for everyone because pretty much everyone at the school knew him as he was such a big personality. His facebook page is still active and people are still leaving messages to him telling him how they miss him and reminding him of their birthdays and how they are no longer teenagers any more. I think that the memorialising of their pages is a good thing. I know that the messages left on his page really helped my friend and her family.

that reminds me to that iPhone app, pocket cementary, or those domains like restinpeace.com, mydeathspace.com etc. imagine facebook as an virtual graveyard seems really cool.

yeah, its actually sweet and nice ..

Well I don't have a Facebook, I have a Myspace. But if I died, I guess I wouldn't mind people writing on my status or memorializing my profile.

As for my other assets; they could be spread out through my family and friends I guess.

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