Yahoo Ending - a new service designed to help people tidy up their digital lives when they die
Yahoo Ending - a new service designed to help people tidy up their digital lives when they die

When you pass away, it isn't just your physical possessions that remain on this earthly plane, but also your digital possessions, like Facebook, Twitter, webmail and online banking.

We've all read about relatives of the deceased having to overcome great hurdles to gain access to or shut down their loved ones' accounts, but what if you could plan ahead for that? Well, Yahoo Japan has.

Yahoo Ending is a new service that helps users with pre-planning a funeral, writing a will, understanding how inheritance tax works, closing down all social media profiles, deleting personal data and even issuing personalised final digital goodbye messages to friends and followers.

Memorial page

There is also the option to create a "living testimony" memorial page, which will include the person's bio, photos, videos, a place for friends and family to leave condolence messages and an invitation to the funeral.

The service also encourages users to tether their bills to Yahoo Wallet, so that once they are gone, Yahoo can stop any charges from going through when it shuts down the digital wallet.

However, Yahoo will only issue the commands to tidy up your digital life once they receive confirmation of an official death certificate by the Japanese government.

At the moment, the service is only available to Yahoo users in Japan. Users can sign up for free now, but after 30 September, they will need to pay a 180 yen (£1, $1.77) monthly fee, plus 14 yen per message prepared, and are they contracted for a year.

Bucket list and personal history

The service is free for existing users who have a Yahoo Premium membership or who pay to use Yahoo Wallet services.

Yahoo Japan also says it is planning to launch other services in the future, such as a "Bucket List" where people can list the dreams and goals they want to achieve before they die, and a "Personal History" to preserve a person's life that can be accessed by family and friends online.

"If this is your last day of life, are you prepared to leave?" Yahoo Japan says on the Ending website.

"Don't procrastinate thinking that this is still way ahead in the future. Those are the exact people who should start preparing."