Have You Thought About Google in Your Estate Planning?
Have You Thought About Google in Your Estate Planning?
How much of your life does Google keep for you? Perhaps Gmail contains all your business and personal communications. Picasa stores the pictures of your kids and your company product line. And Google Drive stores all your business files.
How many people have access to these digital assets? For better security, only you may have their usercode and password. Except what happens if you’re suddenly incapacitate or pass away? Will anyone be able to access these files without an expensive and time-consuming court-order? Or will your previous family records and income-producing business files remain out of reach forever?
The Inactive Account Manager lets you tell Google what to do with your digital assets if you don’t sign on for a specific time. You define this period in three-month blocks up to a year-and-a-half long. It then alerts you via email and mobile phone that it’s about to take action on your account.
You can specify that your entire Google account be deleted. All files associated with your username, such as Blogger postings, YouTube videos, and Google Drive files disappear forever. Nobody can reuse your username, even if it is to access current or future emails.
You can also preserve your accounts and instead send notice to up to ten family members, business associates, or employees. You can also define whether to share data and what kind. For example, you may want to give your employees access to your business email while your spouse receives the family pictures on Picasa.
Before you do anything else, why don’t you initiate the Inactive Account Manager right now? You never know what can happen to you in the next few minutes. If you want more help with estate planning for digital, physical, and financial assets, please contact us.
