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23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

reuters.com

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Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#111

Post by nostromo »

kelnos wrote: post #80
carimura wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

their own privacy team told me they are bound by regulatory obligations to retain data even after you request deletion. I've notified our attorney general's office to see if anything can be done but it might be too late. I'd love for someone who knows these "regulatory obligations" to chime in.....

Interesting, as that would be a violation of the CCPA/CPRA for customers who are California residents, at least. The "regulatory obligations" sounds like a fake excuse. Is 23andme even regulated beyond how your regular average business might be?

Yes, they have been regulated by the FDA for a decade now.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#112

Post by pyrale »

linotype wrote: post #96
cloudbonsai wrote: post #48

23andMe has been in a deadlock for a while. - The CEO is effectively the control owner of the company, having 49% of the voting right. She has been trying to take the company private for some time. - Last August, she proposed to buy all the outstanding shares at $8 per share. The board rejected. She installed a new board, and submitted her proposal again at $2.53 per share. The board rejected. She tried it a third ti…

So rather than $8 a share they get zero? Sounds like the board was the one that messed things up.

Just because your batna is shit doesn’t mean you should sign everything.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#113

Post by shreezus »

Even if you haven't personally used their service, if any close relatives have, they already have a sizable amount of information on your genome. They maintain the equivalent of "shadow profiles" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_profile) as part of their data model for "ancestry" modeling purposes - for example inferring a paternal haplogroup based on data uploaded by genetic relatives.

I can only hope at the end of the day their data doesn't end up in the wrong hands. It is their most valuable asset, and this is a way bigger deal than it seems.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#114

Post by dyauspitr »

vasco wrote: post #57
dyauspitr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I signed up with a fake name and a prepaid debit card. They’re going to have to work hard to get mine.

This combination of being aware enough to use two fake data points while giving away your whole DNA is making me chuckle.

I really wanted to know what’s in my DNA. I did the best I could.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#115

Post by dyauspitr »

sitkack wrote: post #53
dyauspitr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I signed up with a fake name and a prepaid debit card. They’re going to have to work hard to get mine.

Not with any relatives by k-hops they won't.

Yeah but they would need to be looking for me specifically. I think it would offer some form of anonymity in blanket sweeps.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#116

Post by arduanika »

ks2048 wrote: post #35

There are troubling privacy issues, but it was able to tell me: "Toe Length Ratio : Likely second toe longer". I didn't even have to look down! Maybe it was a bad idea. But, I figured if we enter a dystopian future, evil health care companies or governments could easily get my DNA if they want to and/or simply require that information to get care. When you get blood drawn, do you see what they do with it? Hopefully,…

> I didn't even have to look down!

Hilarious, I love it.

Next you're gonna say they told you that you'll probably die of something that you can forestall a bit with good diet and exercise.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#117

Post by canucker2016 »

merb wrote: post #109
eightman wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the value of the remaining assets are worth more than $8/share and she was trying to get them for a discount.

Shares are only worth what somebody wants to pay for them. Selling a ton of shares also often devalues them. Since the company was losing money, it was clear that the shares would drop.

Bloomberg's Matt Levine on the 23andMe situation:

https://archive.is/zXqnB

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#118

Post by tmalsburg2 »

shreezus wrote: post #113

Even if you haven't personally used their service, if any close relatives have, they already have a sizable amount of information on your genome. They maintain the equivalent of "shadow profiles" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_profile ) as part of their data model for "ancestry" modeling purposes - for example inferring a paternal haplogroup based on data uploaded by genetic relatives. I can only hope at the…

What would even be the right hands in this case? Seems like almost any hands would be the wrong hands.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#119

Post by al_borland »

msie wrote: post #55
silisili wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd to me how soft deletion took over the entire industry and 'DELETE FROM' became taboo.

Not really, soft deletion has saved many people's bacon.

That doesn’t mean soft delete should be the only option. With some of our processes, we soft delete for a period of time (2-4 weeks) to account for mistakes. Then, if on one tries to recover it after that time, it does the actual delete.

This seems like a reasonable compromise to me. It offers a safety net, while still getting the job done.

With as many data breaches as we see these days, I want my data gone. If someone gets a dump of the DB, a delete flag doesn’t matter.

This was the primary reason I never got a DNA test, even though I want to see what my results would be. I never trusted the companies to store that data long term. If I could get a test where a company didn’t store the results after they were provided to me, I’d get one tomorrow.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#120

Post by miyuru »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #108
goosejuice wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every customer that legitimately wants their data deleted there's a hundred that complain their data is gone after confirming deletion. The same customers that mark your transactional email as spam then complain about not being able to get into their account. Exaggerating here, but I do think soft deletion practices can be partially blamed on real business problems. I'm not sure why anyone would think that using…

> The same customers that mark your transactional email as spam then complain about not being able to get into their account. That's on you though - shouldn't have sent spam pretending to be transactional email.

I have seen people report confirmation emails, they themself requested.

Internet is not what we used to have years ago, currently the majority of users are not tech literate and that creates new problems now.

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