A recent story in the New York Times brings up a brand new issue related to teh steadily growing amount of data that we all have online at various Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and all the others. Every one of those online services has a volume of information about us that we've put online behind a set of usernames and passwords. What happens to that stuff if you die? Does ownership play into divorce proceedings?

Currently no one knows for sure. Most of the online providers have no provision in their agreements to grant access to your heirs or estate. This is not a common issue that comes up in conversations with my Indianapolis small business computer support customers, but it seems it will before long.

The Times story tells of a woman who, thru her avatar in Second Life, married a man and built a happy virtual home. When the man died, the folks at Linden Labs deleted her entire virtual world because the house had been purchased in his name. The poor woman lost her online mate and all of their online possessions. Imagine if that happened in real life!

This is certainly an unusual thing for your computer consulting company to worry about -- until it becomes important to you or your business. We try to stay one step ahead so our customers can maintain their focus on their work.