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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

#311

Post by trollbridge »

Akasazh wrote: post #261
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

Isn't there possibility of very in depth racial profiling? I mean ancestry.com data van be used similarly, but genetical info is inobfuscable.

It depends. Credible people claim that 23andme’s racial / ethnic compositions are highly inaccurate.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#312

Post by AlotOfReading »

Symmetry wrote: post #297
SecretDreams wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've gotta think bigger. How about generic profiling by a future malicious government that only wants certain types of genomes to proceed to the next generation?

The government can just run the tests themselves in that case. I think people will resist coercive sterilization more than coercive genetic testing.

You'd think so, but the government of California was performing involuntary sterilizations until 2014. An ICE facility in Georgia performed them until at least 2020. It's legal under state law in over half the country.

What's different today that would create a massive outcry that there wasn't 4 years ago?

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#313

Post by CharlieDigital »

antegamisou wrote: post #294
CharlieDigital wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you are not a malicious actor so you aren't coming up with good scams or truly malicious ideas. How about scam emails that open by asking people about their family history of some disease with a genetic marker and promising some miracle treatment? I can think of even worse outcomes depending on how policy on immigration and naturalization shifts

It's very amusing that the parent comment, or anyone else for that matter, believes their credentials somehow are enough to quell us about any potential horrific implications.

Parent comment is coming from an ethical person and ethical people often have a hard time imagining how unethical people operate.

Even I think I'm nowhere near unethical enough to maliciously use this dataset, but who would have thought that a social media platform where you scroll posts from your friends and family could be used as a political tool?

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#314

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

danesparza wrote: post #205
linotype wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If they declare bankruptcy, then the creditors get first pick over assets. Several board members might be creditors.

This right here... finance 101

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#315

Post by ceejayoz »

prolly97 wrote: post #286
ceejayoz wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act gets repealed. Insurers immediately buy their database and drop you because you’re statistically more likely to get an illness.

Luckily most of us live in democracies, where we can just decide whether we want the rules to allow this kind of differentiation.

Yes, that's the middle-school civics ideal.

Then we learn about the perils of "majority rules" setups, of lobbying, of trying to evaluate thousands of different decisions across hundreds or thousands of legislators, etc. and it becomes a lot less simple.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#316

Post by InsomniacL »

htek wrote: post #289
Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

Once 23andMe gets sold, all of that data belongs to whoever owns it and they can sell it to whoever they want. Perhaps to the government where they can do a warrantless search to find a relative of someone who may have been at a crime scene. Or to other governments. Or to insurance companies who want to play deny, defend and depose. I get that a lot of genetic information isn't predictive, but not all of it is so que…

> Once 23andMe gets sold, all of that data belongs to whoever owns it and they can sell it to whoever they want.

Why would a company being sold mean that the data can be used for a purpose it previously couldn't?

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#317

Post by delichon »

bbqfog wrote: post #307
delichon wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with. I'm concerned with being put on a list of ashkenazi, and sold to people who work for my death on that basis. https://www.wired.com/story/23andme-credential-stuffing-data...

I’m much more concerned about Palestinians being targeted since they’ve already been the victims of AI weapons attacking civilians. Imagine if people with Palestinian/semitic DNA were leaked?

Palestinians do not have distinctive DNA that sets them apart from other populations in the Middle East. I'm not aware of movements that target levantine ancestry in general.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#318

Post by hyperbovine »

Spacecosmonaut wrote: post #202
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…

I'm a genetic engineer at a large pharma company. Genetic engineering of human model systems is my specialty. If I were a malicious actor, I could not do anything useful with the genome of any one person. Most peoples genomes are boring and at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree. Exposing infidelity is honestly the best I can come up with.

> at best sway the predisposition for disease by a modest degree

If insurance companies use this information to inform coverage decisions, then it's a moot point right? Just because you and I (who am also in this field) understand the limitations of the models and the data, does not mean that powerful entities will not use it to do stupid things.

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#319

Post by kube-system »

InsomniacL wrote: post #316
htek wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once 23andMe gets sold, all of that data belongs to whoever owns it and they can sell it to whoever they want. Perhaps to the government where they can do a warrantless search to find a relative of someone who may have been at a crime scene. Or to other governments. Or to insurance companies who want to play deny, defend and depose. I get that a lot of genetic information isn't predictive, but not all of it is so que…

> Once 23andMe gets sold, all of that data belongs to whoever owns it and they can sell it to whoever they want. Why would a company being sold mean that the data can be used for a purpose it previously couldn't?

The acquirer could have different policies or legal jurisdictions

Re: 23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

#320

Post by llm_nerd »

carimura wrote: post #38
theogravity wrote: post #10

Just deleted my data. Who knows who will own it after this?

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.....

>their own privacy team told me they are bound by regulatory obligations to retain data even after you request deletion

They have to retain data about the person who requested the deletion which seems eminently reasonable. In the future if you sue them because you can't access your account that you paid for, they have a record that you requested said account's deletion.

Similarly they obviously can't withdraw your data from the anonymized research projects they pursued.

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