Digital assets and will instructions (Comparative study of law in the USA, Canada and Iran)

Digital assets include an individual‘s email accounts, personal webpages, blogs, social networking sites, documents, videos, or photo storage sites. Technological innovations will most likely expand this list in the future, and digital assets are becoming more economically valuable. As more and more use social media to share personal information, privacy Issues and growing digital assets become critical to the discussion about control over user accounts after their death .There are two primary theories offered as a means for protecting a deceased person’s online privacy. The first is rooted in contract law, while the second is rooted in property law. The contract theory relies on analyzing terms of service agreements that users accept to determine the scope of their posthumous privacy rights, while the property theory evaluates whether a deceased user’s digital assets may be treated similarly to “real property” after death. Although the formation of digital asset contracts may be valid, this Article has argued that the terms prohibiting transfer after death and ignoring the testamentary intent of a testator should be unenforceable as against public policy.