I found the following a bit interesting while reading this Time article:

E-mail doesn’t always disappear with you either. Yahoo! Mail’s rule is to keep accounts private: “The commitment Yahoo! makes to every person who signs up for an account is to treat their online activities as confidential, even after their death,” says spokesman Jason Khoury. Court orders sometimes overrule that. In 2005, relatives of a Marine killed in Iraq sued to gain access to his e-mail account. A judge sided with the family, but instead of turning over the account’s password, Yahoo! copied the e-mails onto a CD. Hotmail now allows family to order a CD as long as they can supply proof of death and proof of relationship. Gmail requires the same proof, as well as the copy of an entire e-mail sent from the deceased to the petitioner.