Deceased Business E-mail Contacts

A site visitor was curious and pondered:

I have a contact in my Outlook database that is recently deceased. How long is appropriate to wait before deleting their contact information?

Yes, I was really asked this question — and the question above was all that was in the e-mail — no other sign of any e-mail etiquette effort.
My response? Immediately. There is no waiting period or lack of respect shown for those who passed on by leaving contact information that is no longer valid in your database. If you feel like doing more or showing your respect, send the family a hand written, hard copy sympathy card in the snail mail.

Since they seemed concerned about etiquette, I also commented in my response that proper e-mail etiquette requires you include a greeting and closing when asking others for assistance. And, I pointed them to my article 5 Essential E-mail Elements.