Wealth Matters: Forgotten in Estate Planning: Online Passwords

At 72, he said his concern was not about Facebook or e-mail. It was for their financial lives, which have migrated online, making paper account statements anachronistic. Now, when people die without disclosing their financial affairs to anyone, there is often no paper trail for heirs to follow.

“You’d never know someone else’s financial arrangements, but if it was paperwork you’d have a clue,” Mr. Ginsberg said. “I’m entirely comfortable doing absolutely everything online. But if I have to take over for my brother or my partner, I don’t have any of their information.”

In its annual Wealth and Worth study, released this week, U.S. Trust said 45 percent of the high-net-worth people it polled had not organized passwords and account information for their digital lives in a place where heirs or an executor would find them. (By contrast, the bank said that 87 percent knew the location of important documents and most had a will.)

Much has been written about how family members struggle to get access to the e-mail and social network accounts of loved ones who have died. They have sentimental value much the way photo albums and personal letters do. But far less attention has been paid to the logins, passwords and answers to security questions that will give access to an online financial life.

In an era when far fewer records are kept on paper, spouses and children may not even know that some accounts exist. Think of savings accounts that are only online, or a rollover retirement account that hasn’t been touched in years.

“It’s not only something that needs to be addressed with an individual dying,” Chris Heilmann, chief fiduciary executive at U.S. Trust, said. “If an individual becomes incapacitated, people typically plan for someone to have a durable power of attorney so someone can step in and handle your affairs. But now you’re finding the attorney has to deal with your digital issues. They have to access your computer; they have to pay bills for you.”

Sharing the combination of letters or numbers that give access to a person’s most important financial details is turning out to be a lot harder than telling loved ones that everything they need to know is in a safe deposit box. What can people do?

There are many Web sites and tools that allow people to upload their accounts and passwords in so-called digital vaults. They promise security and a one-stop shop for disparate digital lives. But they often go unused — just as there are a lot of lawyers around but not everyone has an estate plan.

People need to record their account information and passwords just as they need to make an appointment to draw up a will. And that seems to be the problem.

Joel Feldman, a retired garment manufacturer, said he had an estate plan but he had been reluctant to write down all of his logins and passwords and give them to his son. He also does not use a financial adviser, who would know some of that information.

“It does concern me,” Mr. Feldman said. “I keep saying I’m going to make a CD of my bank statements and put it in my safe deposit box, but I don’t do it.”

He said he figured that his son could probably find everything on his computer.

One reason people say they put off drawing up a list is that passwords are constantly changing. But that doesn’t seem to be the reality for many in retirement now. Mr. Feldman said he has only two or three different passwords because he would forget more than that.

Kieran Clifford, a retired vice president for finance from Lucent, said the password to his Gmail account was recently stolen. By combing through past e-mails, the hacker found a Fidelity statement, got the account number, and e-mailed his broker at a separate firm to transfer $250,000 to a bank in Hong Kong. Everything had the same password — his initials and date of birth.

Novelties: Estate Planning Is Important for Your Online Assets, Too

But you may want to provide for your virtual goods, too. Who gets the photographs and the e-mail stored online, the contents of a Facebook account, or that digital sword won in an online game?

These things can be important to the people you leave behind.

“Digital assets have value, sometimes sentimental, and sometimes commercial, just like a boxful of jewelry,” said John M. Riccione, a lawyer at Aronberg Goldgehn Davis & Garmisa in Chicago. “There can be painful legal and emotional issues for relatives unless you decide how to handle your electronic possessions in your estate planning.”

Many services and programs have sprung up to help people prepare for what happens after their last login.

Google has a program called Inactive Account Manager, introduced in April, that lets those who use Google services decide exactly how they want to deal with the data they’ve stored online with the company — from Gmail and Picasa photo albums to publicly shared data like YouTube videos and blogs.

The process is straightforward. First go to google.com/settings/account. Then look for “account management” and then “control what happens to your account when you stop using Google.” Click on “Learn more and go to setup.” Then let Google know the people you want to be notified when the company deactivates the account; you’re allowed up to 10 names. You choose when you want Google to end your account — for example, after three, six or nine months of electronic silence (or even 12 months, if you’ve decided to take a yearlong trip down the Amazon).

Google has ways to make sure that your electronic pulse has really gone silent; it checks for traces of your online self, for example, by way of Android check-ins, Gmail activity and Web history. Then, a month before it pulls the plug, Google alerts you by text and e-mail, just in case you’re still there. If silence has indeed fallen, Google notifies your beneficiaries and provides links they can follow to download the photographs, videos, documents or other data left to them, said Nadja Blagojevic, a Google manager.

And if you just want to say goodbye to everything, with no bequests, you can instruct Google to delete all of the information in your account.

Naomi R. Cahn, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School in Washington, says Google’s new program is a step forward in digital estate planning. “People should carefully consider the fate of their online presences once they are no longer able to manage them,” she said.

Other companies may also be of help in planning your digital legacy. Many services offer online safe deposit boxes, for example, where you can stow away the passwords to e-mail accounts and other data. Accounts like this at SecureSafe, are free for up to 50 passwords, 10 megabytes of storage and one beneficiary, said Andreas Jacob, a co-founder. Accounts can be accessed from a browser, or from free iPhone, iPad and Android apps. The company also offers premium services for those who need a larger storage space, more passwords or more beneficiaries.

There is always your sock drawer or another physical repository to store a list of your user ID’s, should you be deterred from online lockboxes by fear of cyberattacks or the risk that computer servers that may not be there in a few decades, said Alexandra Gerson, a lawyer at Helsell Fetterman in Seattle.

“Make a private list of all your user names and passwords for all the accounts in which you have a digital presence, and make sure you update the list if you change login information” Ms. Gerson said. “Don’t put user names and passwords in your will, though, as it becomes a public record when you die.”

Make sure that your executor or personal representative understands the importance of preserving these digital assets, and knows how to find them, said Laura Hoexter, a lawyer at Helsell who also works on inheritance issues. “Preferably the person should be tech-savvy,” she said, and know about your online game accounts, your PayPal account, your online presence on photo storage sites, social media accounts and blogs, and even your online shopping accounts where your credit card information is stored so that the information can be deleted.

AFTER you die, an executor or agent can contact Facebook and other social media sites, establish his or her authority to administer the estate, and request the contents of the account.

“Most accounts won’t give you the user name and password, but they will release the contents of the account such as photographs and posts” to an executor, Ms. Hoexter said.

Transfer at death can depend on the company’s terms of service, copyright law and whether the file is encrypted in ways that limit the ability to freely copy and transfer it. Rights to digital contents bought on Google Play, for example, end upon the person’s death. “There is currently no way of assigning them to others after the user’s death,” Ms. Blagojevic said.

Encryption is a common constraint, but there are exceptions. Apple’s iTunes store, for example, has long removed its anti-copying restrictions on the songs sold there, and Ms. Gerson advises people to take advantage of this in their digital planning. “Get your music backed up on your computer,” she said.

Up to five computers can be authorized to play purchases made with one iTunes account, and a company support representative advises that users make sure that their heirs have access. At Kindle, too, family members with user ID information for the account can access the digital content.

Professor Cahn in Washington says the time to prepare for the digital hereafter is now, particularly if serious illness is a factor. “If someone is terminally ill,” she said, “in addition to getting emotional and financial issues in order, you need to get your Internet house in order.”

E-mail: novelties@nytimes.com.

Bits Blog: Planning for Another 100 Million Web Sites

Weebly David Rusenko, the chief executive of Weebly.

More than 20 years after the advent of the World Wide Web, some might argue that it has already yielded a surfeit of Web pages, mobile sites, and the digital equivalent of shiny time wasters.

Ha.

“There are maybe 100 million Web sites out there – that is not many, when you consider that there are billions of people,” said David Rusenko, the chief executive of Weebly, a service that enables relatively easy creation of Web sites.

On Thursday, Weebly is doing its modest best to resolve the deficit with a new site planner and creator that uses the HTML5 programming standard for creation of sites that will work correctly on different Web browsers.

The product will also automatically reformat a site for viewing on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, Mr. Rusenko said. It will also be possible to edit a site from a mobile device, and view changes before they are published. Prices for using the service vary, with a free elementary product and a high-end version that runs about $100 a year.

Weebly, which is privately held, says its tools have generated more than 15 million sites since its founding in 2006. These draw 100 million visitors a month, Mr. Rusenko said. It has been a nice business, profitable since 2009, he said, but recently the company wondered if it was really meeting the demand for site creation.

One reason for that is that while making Web sites used to be relatively straightforward, the advent of kinetic elements like video, or the need to build for mobile devices, had made things much tougher. “We did a survey, and found that while 60 percent of people didn’t trust a business without a Web site, 75 percent of people didn’t know it was possible to create their own site,” Mr. Rusenko said.

HTML5 is supposed to solve the problem of writing for different devices and browsers, but designers have found that the standard has its own complexities. Weebly claims to have overcome these by automating processes and adding tools to help newcomers plan their graphic expression. One tool is copying; on their own people get a kind of designer’s block, so Weebly offers templates to study, and an interactive guide with tutorials on things like organization and layout.

Besides helping ordinary businesses develop a Web presence, Weebly says uncertain employment and increasing number of freelancers in the modern economy means more individuals need to be mongering themselves on the Web. If so, it’s part of a trend that includes services like Elance, ODesk, and Freelancer.com, which try to match short-term jobs in things like design and programing with a global talent base. Similarly, Etsy encourages small business by allowing craftspeople a place to display their work.

Maybe the first 100 million sites were the hardest. If so, get ready for an explosion, from lots of people and places. And, in turn, even more competition for work.

Bits Blog: Google Introduces a Tool for Planning for Your Digital Afterlife

One of the most haunting questions facing Web companies and their users is, what happens to the stuff of our digital lives after we die?

Are our Facebook status updates, Flickr photos and Gmail messages like physical journals and photo albums for our families to flip through? Should our iTunes playlists be like records passed down through generations? Would we rest easier knowing that our digital lives would exist for eternity, or that our private postings would stay that way?

On Thursday, Google announced a new tool for managing your digital afterlife. Google users can choose whether they want their information deleted or to name a beneficiary, as in a will. Users can have different directives for different products — deleting Gmail and Drive but sharing Picasa and YouTube content, for instance.

“We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife — in a way that protects your privacy and security — and make life easier for your loved ones after you’re gone,” Andreas Tuerk, a Google product manager, wrote on the company’s public policy blog.

Google users choose whether to activate the feature after their accounts are inactive for three, six, nine or 12 months. Google will send a text message and e-mail before taking any action. The feature, called Inactive Account Manager, is accessible on the account settings page.

Before, survivors could gain access to data stored with Google only with a court order, and that was rare.

Google introduced the feature as states begin to pass laws about what happens to digital remains. Federal privacy laws do not generally address the issue, but Congress is considering it. Google often says it prefers technological solutions to legislative ones.

Other companies are also thinking about the issue. Facebook has grappled with how to confirm that users have died — so the site doesn’t suggest becoming friends with them, for instance — and how to handle it when survivors use a deceased person’s page as a memorial.

And Evernote is working on Evernote Century, which would guarantee that information stored on Evernote is accessible for 100 years and let people designate who can have access to it, even if Evernote goes out of business.

Of course, if we reach the Singularity, as many in the tech world believe we will, we will not need these tools because we will all live forever.

Stephan Bonnar — Planning UFC 153 Escape … In Case of Baby Emergency

Stephan Bonnar
Planning UFC 153 Escape ...
In Case of Baby Emergency
Win or lose, UFC badass Stephan Bonnar is hauling ass back to the U.S. following his bout against Anderson Silva at UFC 153 -- and TMZ has learned, it's all because his pregnant wife's on the verge of a baby-splosion. 

Stephan's wife Andrea tells TMZ, she's due to give birth at the end of the month -- but on the off chance she pops early, Stephan wants to be by her side.

UFC 153 is taking place this weekend in Rio de Janeiro -- so Andrea tells us, Stephan plans to hop a plane as soon as he can after his fight against Silva ... and fly straight back to his wife in Vegas.

But Stephen's not just taking any old plane -- we're told UFC honcho Dana White has offered Stephen the use of his private jet to get him back to Sin City as soon as humanly possible.

We're told Stephan immediately took Dana up on his offer -- but he still has a contingency plan if all else fails ... Skype.

Andrea says Stephen plans to video conference in to his wife's birth if he can't make it in time -- but she adds, "We're trying to avoid even thinking about that."

Janet Jackson planning $24 million wedding

Janet Jackson and her man Wissam Al Mana might be plotting nuptials to put the royal wedding to shame!

There are whispers that Janet could be planning the wedding of the century. According to One News, Janet is planning to jump the broom in the most extravagant style during a $24 million ceremony.

“They have tentatively set a late 2013 wedding date,” a source reportedly told The National Enquirer. “They are still working out the details and the exact day.”

Such a wedding wouldn’t be hard to pull off for Janet’s billionaire beau and she’s built up a nice bank account for herself as well. Reportedly the couple will fly in 500 of their loved ones for $3 million. And Wissam is said to be giving each guest a $10,000 Rolex watch as a wedding favor as a sign of appreciation.

“Wissam is going to splash big when he marries Janet. It’s going to be the wedding of the century,” the source explained.

Neither Janet nor Wissam have commented on the rumors at this time, but they are no strangers to wedding rumors. It had originally been reported that the pair planned to wed over the summer, but Janet and Wissam have never even confirmed their engagement.

While it’s not clear whether Janet and Wissam will ever walk down the aisle, check out some celebrity weddings we can’t wait to see.

Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Planning for a Windows 8 Upgrade

How hard will it be for a Windows 7 computer to upgrade to Windows 8 when the final new system of the new system comes out later this year? Is the test version safe to use?

Windows 7 users should have the easiest time with an upgrade to the new Windows 8 system. Although the final version has not yet been released, Microsoft has stated that Windows 7 users who upgrade their computers can bring along pretty much everything, including installed programs, Windows system settings and personal files to Windows 8. (Not every program may work perfectly after the upgrade, so expect a few updates from software makers after the finished version of Windows 8 lands.)

People with computers running Windows Vista or the decade-old Windows XP system will likely have more work to do when upgrading to Windows 8. As of now, Vista users can transfer system settings and personal files, but XP users can only bring along personal files.

The Windows 8 Release Preview is available on Microsoft’s site for anyone ambitious enough to download it and install it on a compatible computer; installing the test system on a spare, secondary PC is probably the safest option. Keep in mind that this is still a work-in-progress, so some programs, hardware drivers and other bits of software may not behave normally.

The Windows 8 preview cannot be uninstalled once in place. To go back to a previous version of Windows, you must install it again from the original system discs or recovery media. As with any unfinished software program, install it at your own risk.

When Windows 8 does arrive, however, it will be relatively inexpensive compared to earlier Windows releases. Users running Windows XP (or later) will be able to download an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $40 until January 31, 2013. For those who prefer to upgrade from discs, DVD copies of Windows 8 will cost $70 for a limited time.