Those are quite a few interesting quesitons.
I did read an article about this recently online
http://uweekly.com/newsmag/05-27-2009/11289
and I have had to deal with this issue recently with a family member.

I would put this dilemma into two categories. Emotional and financial.

The financial side of someones legacy should be simple. Even if they have an online account with their bank, they have also signed a piece of paper when opening that account stating that someone would have access in this type of situation. And when the bank closes the account, you no longer have to worry about the online side of it.
This would also be true for any financial institution that you have dealt with in person.

For other things like... a Mahalo account, I would just make sure that someone close to me has the username/password and will notify them if/when the time comes.

I would only use a company like Legacy Locker if there were just too many accounts connected to Adsense and Paypal, or if you didn't have someone close to you who can handle it.
(I do see where this company can and does come in very handy!)

The emotional side of this is more complicated.
My brother passed away almost two years ago and left quite a few people in the dark. We did not have his usernames/passwords to these accounts.

For many years he worked within the global online chess community. He was a chess champion and would frequently travel within the California and Nevada circuits. I did contact the main website that he would often teach and coach on, but because he was so well known, I still had to deal with phone calls a year later from chess players across the country who didn't see the mention of his passing on the site.

We were not able to access his email or other personal accounts, so I'm sure he's still floating out there to some degree.

I agree with you that if someone has a following, they should be honored, but the best way to do this would be to plan ahead of time (by the honoree).

If I only had 6 months to live, I would be typing until my last breath, but would have also given all my internet information to someone so that they can shut off the appropriate accounts after me.

I can see many variations of this type of business opening up, or at lease options of how to handle it on the internet. Because when someone passes away, there are many unique ways of handling that persons legacy and honoring them when they are gone.

Regarding your header. I don't think we will ever know the exact percentage of profiles or accounts that are still out there after a person passes away, but you can bet that the number gets bigger every year.

As more of our overall communication and social interaction moves to the web, it's only natural that we will use this technology to honor and remember the dead as well. Already it is quite common, especially among younger people, to create a Facebook group or something similar for friends and family to share memories and photos of someone who has recently died. I don't think this is inappropriate at all. Obviously it won't (and shouldn't) replace more traditional ceremonies of grief such as a funeral, but it can act as a supplemental way to help people share their feelings, even when separated by great distances.

I think the percentage of dead people who still have accounts on social networking sites varies by the service and its policies. Facebook, for example, used to have a policy where they would delete profiles of any users who had died. However, after the Virginia Tech shootings a couple of years ago, they changed the policy so that deceased users' profiles would enter a "memorial" state -- the user may not add any more friends, and the privacy settings would all get set to "friends only," but the profile would remain intact for friends and family to view and leave wall messages and the like.

I think it is important for people to consider what would happen to their social networking profiles and other online assets after their death. I've thought about this very issue and I plan to eventually put together a list of all my important online accounts and passwords (as well as offline bank accounts, etc.) and lock it in a safe deposit box or someplace like that to be opened in case of my death. I'd leave it up to my family to decide whether to delete those accounts or not. I can see both sides of it: a Facebook account can become a great way for friends of a dead person to connect with each other and honor the deceased, or it can be a painful reminder of a loved one's death. As I'll be dead, I see no reason not to let them make whatever decision helps them in their grieving process.

Good question. Important accounts such as online banking, websites, or anything with a lot of valuable personal information should be left to someone in a will, just like physical assets.

For accounts that are not that important, say message board accounts or a blog that is rarely used, I think these things can remain in place. No need to delete them. They can stay online forever or until inactivity causes them to be deleted.

If someone has a large following an say a blog and that blog is passed on to someone through the will, I think it would be appropriate for that person to post a final article as a tribute to the one who passed away.

You bring up a good point that is someone knows they are nearing the end, they should make arrangements to close or transfer online accounts, the same as they would do for real life accounts.

As for statistics, I'm not sure, but I'm guessing since the internet is relatively new, most people who have accounts are still alive. There would be a small percentage of young people with accounts who died prematurely. Once the internet generation gets old, I can see this becoming a much bigger issue than it is today.

Technically, none of them "have" profiles: they "had" them when they were alive.

A more interesting question might then be; what becomes of social networking profiles when their original curators die?

I'm not sure our legal system is quite prepared to deal with this question, though I'm sure it won't be too long until it comes up.

This is hard to answer, but I'll do my best:

(1) From a study completed by InsightExpress, it seems that 43% of the online population uses social networking sites.

Social Networkers:
1 profile -- 46% MySpace, 36% Facebook.
2/3 profiles -- 78% MySpace, 71% Facebook, 22% Classmates, 11% LinkedIn.
4+ profiles -- 92% Facebook, 89% MySpace, 60% Classmates, 40% Reunion, 33% LinkedIn, 11% Flickr and 10% Twitter.

I hope this helps to do the math...

I think that websites should delete accounts after a year of inactivity, somewhat like Yahoo! (who does suspend an account after four months, as seen here, and where I read somewhere else - deletes it nine months after that). A year is plenty of time for an online company (social network) to acknowledge that the user will not be participating (alive or not). If people who are living lose their email accounts for inactivity, why should the account(s) of a passed loved one be an exception? This is my response to the possibility of having only six months to live as well. Why do we need one more thing to worry about regarding passing away?

From Chris Pirillo's video, I think Legacy Locker is banking on people's fear of mortality, people's inability to accept what is natural, the desire to keep things static, and if websites can't implement an inactivity clause in their terms of service, I don't think people should be forced to pay for Legacy Locker to give another family member the ability to delete their online profile. I can't afford $299 and I was born empty-handed, when it's my turn to go I'll be empty-handed. An online legacy does not make sense to me...

(2 & 3) Websites can acknowledge the death of a member, but maybe they should do it on a non-public level as it has been done at some schools - send a email out to the members of the community (to inform students, to offer services and condolences; at least this is what has been done at Columbia University). I think things like what MyDeathSpace does just isn't right.

There shouldn't be a permanent memorial page for only mourning someone's death. A page could be created to honor their life, but while also doing something else productive - such as creating a fund or scholarship in their name, or to document some social or political injustice to get others to rally for a cause, or let's say the death was the result of a DUI, gang violence, or poorly regulated security, then the page could organize others to inform & educate (to stop others from facing the same fate).

I hope I expressed myself correctly (without offending anyone), but I also think that many people are too attached to nostalgia. It is not healthy to write posts or comments on someone's wall if they are no longer with us. If someone argues that it is a way of coping, then a person could write it on their own discussion board -- take this same situation offline -- would you send a post card to the address of a deceased loved one? And if you answered yes to this, would you do it again a year later? Do you get a permanent marker and write on a tomb stone?

(4) Regarding situations like Mahalo - would deleting the account delete the answers? It shouldn't matter if the person is alive or not to answer this. I think Mahalo doesn't delete the answers since those submitted by Darcy Logan are still viewable. The day that Mahalo deletes the answers submitted by users no longer on Mahalo is the same day that they should delete those no longer living -- however, Mahalo should modify the username (even go so far as to replace it with Non-Active Mahalo User #__) or replace the avatar with a black ribbon to indicate that this user will no longer participate (the picture should definitely be removed). Also, I do suggest that Mahalo block comments or questions to their profile. Better yet, delete the whole profile... and if there is Mahalo dollars for the account, redistribute it within the community.

i have about 100 friends on myspace and one of them dies last year. but i dont think we can ever know for sure, because they never get deleted, and people make fake ones every year, so it is as if they were dead.

I had the same question when my coworker died of cardiac arrest recently. He was very online active and had left his profiles all over. I still see his profile on Linkedin and other site with the static info. I am not sure if his wife knows about this, or maybe they just wanted to leave it as it is in his memory.

Personally since 2005, I have a secured flash drive in the safe with our (me and my wife) online profiles. I have told my wife to take "care" of it if something happens to me. I implemented this after I met with a car accident in 2004 and my wife was abroad.

I have updated the list couple of times, but it's time to update it for this year with my "Mahalo account" and few others.

I am not sure whether I am ready yet to use online services like Legacy locker.

Should this be part of the Will?

I am not sure this situation is covered in the " term and conditions" , because I have never read any to its entirety. Maybe I will check for those terms from now on.

What if someone hacks these profiles and takes over?

Ghosts in the Machines
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=8182