Hacker News Reader

Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

This article is highly disingenuous.

23andMe ask you during sign up if you wish to take part of anonymized research. They ask you again for each person whose sample you submit. You can also opt out at any time.

The article author even knows this, since when they asked Ancestry (23AndMe's owner) that was exactly what they were told. So why does the article have such a hyperbolic tone and misleading information?

I don't have high expectations for Business Insider but this article still disappoints me. This is tabloid level "journalism."

View on HN

AFAIK 23andme and Ancestry are competitors. This would makes sense why they asked Ancestry what they do and doesn’t use that to make the argument as each company may treat sharing differently.

>AFAIK 23andme and Ancestry are competitors

I'm not sure I'd call them competitors. Yes they both take your spit and process it, yes they both allow you to see potential extended family but that's about the only similarities.

Ancestry added it as an extension of their genealogical services while 23andme was originally for personal medical discovery before the FDA came down on them and they had to change tactics.

writing articles that blame pharma and biotech for stealing people private data is the hot thing now. It increases page hits. Same with blaming google, facebook for stealing user data; it's the fear du jour.

While there are legitimate concerns, 23&Me is pretty good in terms of privacy practices and their founders/employees are working in good faith to improve the health of humans. It's kind of sad that gets twisted into "compabnies are profiting from your personal data", because while that is true, it's not nearly as invasive or gattaca as people seem to think.

In this case, nobody's stealing anything. People are opting to give them not only their information, but those of their descendants as well. Apparently they think that some sort of "privacy clause" (written by the corporation's lawyers no doubt) will remain intact if things get financially tight, and that the courts and governments will step in if the businesses try to take advantage of their knowledge in a way detrimental to the customer.

But we all understand that technology is only going to make more information available from those samples over time. The board has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders, and it doesn't take a great imagination to see that if the information becomes valuable in new ways then there will be pressure to use it however they can.

What we have here is a baby step.

> since when they asked Ancestry (23AndMe's owner

Ancestry is not 23andme’s owner. They are competitors.

> They ask you again for each person whose sample you submit.

You can submit a sample for someone else?

Sure, why not? I've seen friends assist their parents many times.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com