Tag Archives: Estate Planning for Military

Continuing from last month’s post (The Care and Preservation of Your Digital Assets), digital assets do not necessarily have to have monetary value.  Many people store their modern day diaries i.e. blogs or similar writings on their computers, along with photographs and other matters of sentimental value.  In a famous but tragic case, a young marine deployed in Iraq wrote regularly on his Yahoo! account (email and blog) about his experiences.  He was killed in action and his mother wanted access to his account so she would have a record of his writings about his service.  Yahoo’s policy was to delete the accounts of a deceased user.  Without a plan for dealing with his digital assets, his mother had to go to the probate court, which while it ultimately ordered Yahoo to turn over copies of the emails, did not give the family access to his account.

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