What would happen to your online accounts if you were to die?

Just such a lot of faff and bother, unless of course a member had a good reason to assume another identity, but that could be classed as the "t" word!

Of course, which is what has happened on here in the past, or has everyone conveniently forgotten? Some GN members even changed their usernames and amended their profiles because they were so worried!

I was just making a point. Do feel free to have another go at me in my absence, but I'm off to bed.

Who's having a go at you?

There have been a number of posters who have reappeared in a different guise, some have changed names for security reasons, others have just stopped and probably gone off to do other things for no particular reason but a change in activities.

Trying to speculate who was who is a pretty pointless excercise.

However there are some posters who come and go but whose style and the themes they post on always appear very familiar indeed.

However back to the original question of what happens to our stuff on the internet I suppose we should leave notes in our wills about what to do about such things.

As someone else said about GN I think we would probably just dissappear without trace and sink to the bottom of the ocean of GN threads never to rise again.

I went off for a while. Changed my name, too, from jendurham to durhamjen, because I'd stopped and changed my email in the meantime.
I think as soon as I started talking politics you would have guessed. The name's a dead giveaway, too.
I hope nobody's stopped posting because of my political views. I've talked like this all my life, and I'm not going to change now. I'm socialist and proud of it.

This has got me thinking. I'm going to make a little book with all my important details in it so that if I popped my clogs my sons would have all my info to hand.

I think Gransnet is great in that it raises all sorts of topics that even friends are reluctant to talk about.

I think my answer to the OP is nothing – but who cares?

I'm struggling to understand the link that the OP posted.
It mainly concerned a bereaved mother who said she couldn't access her deceased daughter's FB page.
But FB said they had 'memorialised' the page so that only people who were already friends could access the page.
Maybe the mum wasn't a Facebook friend before her daughter's death, although the article said she had helped her daughter log into FB and read messages when she was ill.

I can't see that it matters. They would just sink without trace. If it was things I don't want in the public domain I wouldn't have them on the Internet in the first place.

In the case of the link I wouldn't want anyone operating my accounts after my death- I would hope they would be locked down.

I still keep getting phone calls asking to speak to my husband, who died over three years ago. I can only assume they get his details from the internet as anything else has long gone. He's not on any council or charity lists any more.

My mum has or had this problem for many years. Not very nice.

Durham I used to get those. My reply was 'I hope you know good medium then!'

I usually say, "I wish you could, but he died three years ago," trying to be out of the grandchildren's hearing. Sometimes the phone clicks off before I can ask them to remove the information from their lists.

I have thought of saying, "Hang on, I'll just go get his ashes," but that would be too flippant, even for me.

Brilliant timing. I've just had a phone call from a company to speak to my husband. I asked what it was about; a survey he filled in five days ago.
I said that was clever of him as he died over three years ago. At least I got an apology this time and asked the person to take our information off his list.

Well done, DJ, you rose to the cue and gave them just the right answer. I usually say "No, I am sorry, you can't speak to him! What was it about?" in a surprised tone, and then tell them that he can't answer that as he died three years ago.

JaneA I thought that too about the mother in the link - but that the subject in general was worth raising here.

I do think the subject is interesting Elegran
As it pointed out in the article, after someone dies their effects -photos, stuff they have written etc, forms part of their estate and can be accessed by and shared out among the relatives.
That isn't so with photos that have been posted online on social media sites, or things that may have been posted on Internet forums.
I thought Facebook's response to the mother in your link sounded quite uncaring, but possibly they took legal advice, that it breached confidentiality to alter someone's privacy settings after their death. Presumably it has not been tested in court.

As far as online bank accounts go, it doesn't seem to me to be very different from any other account - you may have the passwords to allow you to gain access, but it's illegal to do that unless you're the executor and probate has been granted.

If we open an online account that our DCs know nothing about, it's not so very different from hiding large amounts of cash in the house and not telling anyone where it is.

After my mother died, an aunt told me Mum had hidden some money in the cooker, but not until after said cooker had been disposed of!

I have all the websites I visit and passwords listed on a password protected document on my laptop. My sister in law (the executor named in my Will) knows the password to open this document and will I assume delete me from all the online forums etc.

She also has my Power of Attorney should I suddenly lose all my marbles (should be sometime next week the way things are going !!)

I don't have much that is personal online to worry me. Something like gransnet has no personal information or photos- just my opinions and I am quite happy for them to live on. I expect they are forgotten by the next day so not a worry anyway.