GigaOM has a great write-up about Facebook’s new ‘legacy contact’ feature, a new settings preference for American users which lets you designate a person who can access your account to perform certain functions in the event of your death.
It seems like a benign thing, but as the article points out, it may be a more devious new feature than it first appears. Law-makers in several states are in the process of creating ‘digital assets’ legislation to specifically address not just a Facebook account, but other digital accounts a person may have. Could Facebook be trying to exempt themselves from compliance with such laws by claiming they have a pre-existing policy?
And, too, there are potential legal issues such as what would happen if there was a conflict between an estate’s executor and between the Facebook ‘legacy contact’ person. I am thinking here of the dispute between the Kardashian siblings over their late father’s diary—they argued that, as his heirs, they were entitled to control his intellectual property and prevent their stepmother from publishing it. She argued that as the inheritor of his household property, she was entitled to keep the physical diary itself, and therefore do as she pleased with its contents. It’s fine to authorize a sibling or spouse to close out your Facebook account, but what if they find something in there—photos, for instance—that’s valuable?
I think the problem is, in spite of the ‘maturity’ of the internet and its acceptance as a fact of life, we’re still a bit in the wild west here. How many of these prodigious quantities of Kindle authors have made provisions in their wills for the continued payment of royalties to their estates? How many of them even have executors who KNOW about the Kindle books? And what about Bruce Willis and his efforts to legalize the bequeathing of iTunes accounts?
I think most people won’t care what happens to their hobby stuff when they go. If my heirs do not maintain my Video Fitness account, no biggie. But in the case of an iTunes account, or Kindle, or Facebook—where there may be actual assets of value—we do need some guidance on what to do with these. I think Facebook’s new ‘rule’ might not stick as a permanent thing, but it may at least start a valuable discussion.
Neil Gaiman hosts a generic will for professional writers. I suggest that every writer use it as a starting place for a writing codicil to their “real life” will.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html
I go into greater detail on author wills and what to consider when you write one here:
http://mbyerly.blogspot.com/2011/05/authors-and-wills.html
Very interesting perspective about why Facebook may have implemented the Legacy feature. We still had concerns ourselves about this from a different standpoint. It’s a good idea to be thinking ahead regarding digital assets and what happens to all property and live accounts upon death of the owner, but if you don’t have a consolidated list of your assets and accounts somewhere secure, yet known by those whom you want to take action on your behalf upon death or incapacitation, it doesn’t do any good. There still needs to be a consolidated plan where those whom you name as executors can easily access all of the information and close them down and/or retrieve assets.