These days a funeral followed up cucumber sandwiches isn’t the only way we will be remembered. Our websites and blogs, profiles on Facebook, Twitter and even our email accounts will stick around the World Wide Web long after we’re gone.

But do we want to be remembered through our digital lives? And who should control this online legacy that we’ve inadvertently left behind?

Worldwide, more than a quarter of a million Facebook users will die this year alone. Dead internet users will also leave email accounts in the internet ether, which hold a treasure trove of information about how we lived and who we communicated with.

To hear the legal, social, spiritual and environmental issues surrounding death in the digital era check out my radio documentary, which aired on ABC’s Radio National.

Click on these links to find out what can happen to the Gmail, Facebook and Twitter accounts of dead users.