23andMe Is Monetizing Your DNA the Way Facebook Monetizes 'Likes'

Would be better to link directly to the original article/source?

http://gizmodo.com/of-course-23andmes-business-plan-has-been...

This sort of data is exactly what I would not want to entrust to any organisation in the midst of all of the leaks and hacks we are seeing in the news. Let alone having them sell it legally to god knows who...

I remember reading about a hack/leak of, I think around 20,000 people's fingerprint data from the US government, and thinking to myself about the consequences of this biological data falling into the wrong hands. If there are any spies in that list and any country, say China, gets a hold of it, there is no way to update that spy's security, you can't change their fingerprints the same way I can think of a new password after a hack.

I might not be worried about anyone seeing my DNA profile at the moment, but maybe I will be in the future, and once the data is out there it can't be taken back or changed on my end.

So on one side journalists lament lack of new drug development & just the shoddy state of healthcare tech, while as soon as any new data that can potentially unlock new drug targets (23andMe) or provider better support (Google DeepMind Health) is introduced, Such efforts are quickly demonized with spread of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

Rather than asking important questions such as at which level the "aggregate" data is shared, or what safeguards exists, the blog post and source "Gizmodo" article is quick to jump gun and spread fear (You are the product / you are being sold!!!). These posts are targeted to derive same emotional response that drive anti-vaxxers / anti-GMO nuts.

23andme has a very clear privacy policy on their landing page. So what's this all about?

The data has been anonymized (donor name removed), deidentified (records which could be used to derive the donor name have been removed or otherwise modified), and aggregated (grouped across multiple individuals). It's unlikely (although not impossible) to take that data and convert it to DNA profiles of individuals.