Legacy.com is a United States–based website founded in 1998, the world's largest commercial provider of

online memorial An online memorial is a virtual space created on the Internet for the purpose of remembering, celebrating, or commemorating those who have died. An online memorial may be a one-page HTML webpage document giving the name of the deceased and a few w ...

s. The Web site hosts

obituaries An obituary (obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Acco ...

and memorials for more than 70 percent of all U.S. deaths.Keagle, Lauri Harvey
"Death in the Dot-com Age"
, NWI Times, October 10, 2009. Accessed October 12, 2009 Legacy.com hosts obituaries for more than three-quarters of the 100 largest newspapers in the U.S., by circulation."Legacy.com Achieves Milestone: 650 Newspaper Affiliates"

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

, April 28, 2008. Accessed February 24, 2009. The site attracts more than 30 million unique visitors per month and is among the top 40 trafficked websites in the world. Legacy, along with the smaller Column.us and its subsidiary Modulist.news, provide significant income to newspapers for obituaries which survivors write and pay newspapers to print, over $50 million from late 2022 to early 2024. Overall US newspapers earn $500 million per year from paid obituaries. Legacy.com attaches a publicly accessible guestbook to most of the obituaries it hosts,Urbina, Ian
"In Online Mourning, Don’t Speak Ill of the Dead"
. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', November 5, 2006. Accessed February 24, 2009 which enables anyone with an Internet connection to pay tribute to someone whose obituary appears in one of Legacy.com's affiliate newspapers or is self-published on Legacy.com. The company reviews more than 1,000,000 guestbook entries each month to make sure that entries are appropriate and sensitive to those close to the family. About 75 percent of all guestbooks receive entries. the company was approaching 100 million guestbook entries on its site. Legacy.com is a privately held company based in

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, with more than 1,500 newspaper affiliates in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, Europe and Australia,Kirsner, Scot
"Monster.com founder sees untapped potential in death notices"
, ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'', August 23, 2009. Accessed September 18, 2009 including ''

'', ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'', ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' and ''

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 20 ...

''. The executive team was previously led by Stopher Bartol, and is now led by CEO Curtis Funk as of 2024.

References

External links

* American news websites Internet properties established in 1998 Acknowledgements of death Companies based in Chicago 1998 establishments in Illinois Funeral-related companies {{Website-stub