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23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

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Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#211

Post by rfrey »

logifail wrote: post #199
xvector wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a security engineer. When I signed up for 23andme, I assumed with certainty that it would be hacked and all data leaked at some point. I balanced that with the value of knowing potentially important health/genetic bio markers. In the end, I valued knowing these bio markers above the privacy of my genome. The former is actionable and I can use it to optimize my health and longevity; the latter is of vague value a…

> I can use it to optimize my health and longevity Q: Is it a HN thing to be (obsessively?) interested in health and longevity? Dying is a natural process. Sorry.

It's a human thing. Not all humans, but many.

> Dying is a natural process. Sorry.

Avoiding dying, as best one can, is also a natural behaviour.

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#212

Post by freeAgent »

kelthan wrote: post #55
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #49

Forcing customers to use arbitration hasn't always been in the companies interest - if only a fraction of the 7M effected customers started the arbitration process it could cost a lot more than a class action suit. Didn't Uber drivers get a large payment from them in this way? https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/uber-loses-appeal-b...

Trying or arbitrating a large number of cases individually is far more expensive than litigating a class action suit. But only if the people pushing the arbitration hold firm, rather than agreeing to the initial settlement offering.

I once looked into arbitration against a local company based on their ToS. Initiating arbitration would have cost me several hundred dollars, not to mention time, which was more than my dispute was worth.

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#213

Post by Fischgericht »

pyuser583 wrote: post #164
Fischgericht wrote: post #159

As someone living in the EU, these kind of things puzzle me a lot. How can a legal system exist, where it's possible to deny a (consumer) contract party access to the legal system and law of the land? (In the EU we do have arbitrations clauses, but they are only legal between businesses and tightly regulated. Arbitration "courts" must be neutral. And you can not put them into ToS.) Also, I was under the impression th…

The real issue is that lawyer can “try” anything with almost no consequences. I doubt this will work. But there’s “no harm in trying.”

Over here there are "consumer associations" that have the right to sue in such cases in the name of all consumers. That works quite well.

Due to this traditionally those things are not even tried.

That has changed with (mostly US) businesses entering the EU. A good example is booking.com, who again and again and again invented new dark patterns to then get sued for it, making it clear those are illegal.

We had the same with the airline industry with their advertised prices not matching the actual final price with all taxes and made-up fees. But by now even Ryanair has given up and no longer tries those tactics.

But there are no big financial penalties for losing such cases in court. I guess it's the bad PR these court cases generate every time that makes those businesses after a while giving up trying to screw over consumers...

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#214

Post by dylan604 »

klipt wrote: post #67
apwell23 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you do not notify us within 30 days, you will be deemed to have agreed to the new terms. WTF. This is outrageous. And I had find that email in my spam after I read this comment. Hope this POS company goes down in flames after this.

Lol that surely can't be enforceable. Imagine "you agree to give us your kidney if you don't opt out within 30 days" sitting in your spam folder. How is this different?

The last time I went rooting around in my SPAM folder, I came back a different person. I am forever changed by what I saw in there. I consider email totally broken in today's environment, but without a SPAM folder it would be closer to totally useless.

With the benefit of hindsight, the invention of SPAM should have told us all we needed to know about the future of the internet. A small percentage of users will do their damnedest to ruin it for everyone else. It's a sign that people cannot be trusted to not use the tech for evil. I'm sure it foretold the corruption of social media as well. It is all SPAM's fault!

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#215

Post by dylan604 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #157
apwell23 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you do not notify us within 30 days, you will be deemed to have agreed to the new terms. WTF. This is outrageous. And I had find that email in my spam after I read this comment. Hope this POS company goes down in flames after this.

Write back "you agree to pay me $10M in compensation unless you reply in 30 days" ...

*auto-replies are not accepted as a valid response

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#216

Post by averageRoyalty »

logifail wrote: post #199
xvector wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a security engineer. When I signed up for 23andme, I assumed with certainty that it would be hacked and all data leaked at some point. I balanced that with the value of knowing potentially important health/genetic bio markers. In the end, I valued knowing these bio markers above the privacy of my genome. The former is actionable and I can use it to optimize my health and longevity; the latter is of vague value a…

> I can use it to optimize my health and longevity Q: Is it a HN thing to be (obsessively?) interested in health and longevity? Dying is a natural process. Sorry.

We fight all sorts of natural processes. Most common forms of death from a couple of centuries ago are solved. Our average lifespan has increased dramatically. We fly around in planes, travel to space, grow fruit out of season and build giant cities.

As a species, we're excellent at working around or ignoring what's "natural".

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#217

Post by dylan604 »

ballenf wrote: post #126
verve wrote: post #7

To duck out of the new ToS, just write this email to legal@23andme.com-- To Whom It May Concern: My name is [name], and my 23andMe account is under the email [email]. I am writing to declare that I do not agree to the new terms of service at https://www.23andme.com/legal/terms-of-service/ .

I wonder what would happen if someone used one of the public email dumps and automated a mass opt-out of every email ever spotted in the wild.

wow, that's probably one of the most brilliant altruistic ideas I've read since buying other people's medical debt.

this is probably why the unsubscribe links require some interactive confirmation so that simply loading the page doesn't actually unsubscribe.

if this was doable, i'd put them above Troy Hunt in contributions to humankind ;-)

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#218

Post by salawat »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #58
willcipriano wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they can use things like opt out data to find a way screen for genetic markers of "troublemakers" or similar. DNA driven targeted advertising that finds only the most docile consumers.

They can't tell you your eye color from their DNA data with any degree of confidence, and you seriously expect them to be able to find a marker of something as vague as "troublemakers" ?!

...And yet phrenology was a thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

Never underestimate the willingness to engage in the days new "not-yet-clearly-identified-as-quackery-pseudo science" when there is a buck to be made.

Re: 23andMe changed its terms of service to prevent hacked customers from suing

#220

Post by underwater »

dylan604 wrote: post #201
throwaway092323 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably know that it doesn't hold water legally. The hope is to victim blame as much as possible so that fewer people sue them in the first place. The next step will be to "remind" people about the TOS that they totally agreed to.

This looks like a perfect class action case. There's really no physical harm or financial harm to the users, but a class action might be the only way for it to hurt. But IANAL, and probably have it all wrong in my head???

Why is it that in the US individuals have to band together and privately launch a class action to stop these types of parasitic behaviours. The government is supposed to represent the interests of citizens.
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