For people who live most of their life online, a new service is offering a tidy virtual burial when they die.
San Francisco-based Legacy Locker says it provides a safe, secure way to pass online accounts to friends and loved ones.
“It’s not fun to think about, but the reality is most Web-based companies have no provision for managing your account in the event of your passing,” says Jeremy Toeman, the startup’s founder.
It cites stories such as Facebook not allowing relatives to remove the pages of the deceased and Yahoo preventing a dead Marine’s family from gaining access to his email.
Legacy Locker acts like a safe deposit box, allowing users to put away details of their email accounts, photo-sharing sites and social networking logins. It differs from password-storing services in allowing users to designate a beneficiary for each account to receive those assets when the person dies.
“Legacy letters” can also be created to be emailed to friends and family when a death is reported.
A free, limited, version is available to test the service, which can be subscribed to for $30 a year or a one-time fee of $300. Legacy Locker says the pricing model reflects what it says is the $3,000 to $4,000 people pay to set up a will or estate plan in the real world. It plans to market the service through professional estate planners as well as directly through its website.
