What happens to an online account after someone dies?

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What happens? I don't think I had a facebook friend who died yet nor do I know of anyone on WP who has died. Just wondering what happens to their account? Does nothing happen and the account just doesn't change as if the person never logs in again, or does someone cancel and get rid of the account?

I don't know about all the sites where you could register an account, but I do know that if you have a Yahoo Mail account and you don't use it for a certain number of months, they'll close it due to inactivity. They did that to me twice.

Some months ago I read an article about this 'problem'. People arrange for their 'real' things to be handled when they die, but forget about the 'online' things like mailboxes.

People should make a will for online things...
I am thinking about making a special account on my computer for my family when I die. On the desktop I want to put some documents about important online accounts they should have or should block. Besides that I want to make some scripts that send emails to people to let them know I died. Accounts on fora are a different thing, since some of them are not meant for my family to see (like WrongPlanet).

I read that you can talk to Facebook and if you give them proof of death they put the page on a special memorial mode or something.

Gmail do something too, but I forgot the details.

Somewhere in 2004 or 2005 I knew a blog of some teenager suffering from depression who committed suicide because of it. When some time later I tried to find it to read her entries one more time, I discovered the blog was removed. But if not the fact that its owner took her own life, this online diary wouldn't be anything out of ordinary - in fact, many people commenting on the girl's entries, mocked her manner of writing - the teen belonged to those who LOVE to mix Polish and English, adapting our spelling to the English patterns Many teens in here have this habit but it's perceived silly and shallow looking.

Nothing happens to most accounts. They become inactive, but aren't usually deleted.

When I first started reading this site, I remember reading posts from one user whose avatar is of my favorite musician(by far). I would always notice her posts.

A few months later I found out that this poster had killed herself just several weeks before I started reading this site. That was very strange. It is still strange when I search this site for a topic and see her posts.

I can tell you one thing that doesn't happen, it doesn't get deleted. Facebook doesn't allow anyone to delete their account not even the DEAD! But most likely it just goes unused forever minus a few posts people do in their memory, and that live feed thing. All their accounts go on forever so long as they don't have to make payments and those go on if they can take the money out automatically.

On here, as far as I know? There have been two deaths.... One by an incurable illness and the other one just died of a suicicde because she hated her life so bad that she attempted suicicde so many times... The last time she tried happened to work and everyone lost a good member... This is before I even came on here.

Jetson and Starbuline.

As for dead members on online community, they wouldn't know that the person has died unless the person wrote a suicide message or tell the person the password incase it did happen.... It would end up being deleted.

My best friend who died not long ago, his account is still up but it's on private.

I still look at it every once in a while wondering to myself why....

I shut my husband's accounts down after he died. I went in and informed the various online communities he'd been a part of. But if I hadn't done that he'd still be out there as an internet ghost somewhere.

I'd like one of my closest friends to open an account, just to announce that I've passed away, and maybe talk to the people, here. I wouldn't want any of my family members to do it. My friends understand me, more than my family does.