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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

#51

Post by mrkramer »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #13
mrkramer wrote: post #6

I'm not a lawyer but I doubt that this will matter in the court because the time of actions matter; or in another words at the time when user registered they agreed to TOS A and later when 23andMe changed their TOS A to TOS B they achieved nothing because you can't unregister users and register them again and force them to agree to the new TOS B. I mean they can ask you to agree to new TOS but you don't have to becau…

> I mean they can ask you to agree to new TOS but you don't have to because TOS is not a law Aren't they forcing you to agree to the new TOS to continue using the product?

Then pull out and sue them for maliciously enforcing new TOS. People should collectively sue them.

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

#52

Post by midasuni »

mauvehaus wrote: post #9
brianwawok wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you send them your DNA? It was pretty obvious from day 1 that sending some random startup on the internet my DNA was a bad move.

Not everyone opted in as such. My wife has an identical twin who sent in a test.

Presumably neither you, your kids, or your wife, has grounds to sue them

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

#53

Post by kelthan »

dannyw wrote: post #30
kelthan wrote: post #12

Automatically opting-in customers to a more restrictive TOS is pretty suspect, especially given the timing. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that a court would not allow that, given that the TOS was changed AFTER the breach and it's pretty clear that the company is trying to avoid legal issues after-the-fact. I would expect the court would evaluate any breach under the TOS that was in effect at the time of the breach, rath…

Federal Arbitration Act severely, and nearly completely, ties courts hands around throwing out binding arbitrations. Of course, if people don’t accept the new terms, they are still bound by the one ones. But if you don’t opt out…

But having the company update a TOS that automatically removes rights from the consumer, after the consumer already agreed to a TOS that didn't previously restrict those rights is likely not going to hold up in court, either. Especially when the TOS changes were made after an event likely to trigger litigation.

This isn't a case of a minor change to consumer rights in the TOS like changing who would arbitrate a case. It's a significant restrictive change to the rights of the customer in favor of the company. And it was made after a security breach that affected a huge portion of the companies clients which is likely to trigger lawsuits of the form that the TOS now seeks to restrict.

This is clearly a case of attempting to close the barn door after the horse was spotted in the next county over.

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

#54

Post by nielsbot »

kryptiskt wrote: post #43

I have a vague recollection that some company fairly recently squirmed when it got tons of arbitration cases. It would be really funny if 23andMe got dragged to the arbitrator a million times.

I think there was a general pattern of people striking back against mass forced arbitration by saying "ok, that's fine, we'll all go to arbitration at once". And companies ended up having to foot the bill for hundreds or thousands of arbitration cases...

Newer arbitration clauses that I've seen now cover this scenario. Something like "If many identical cases come forward at the same time, you agree to combine your cases in a single arbitration action"

Looks like CR wrote about it:

https://www.consumerreports.org/money/contracts-arbitration/...

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

#55

Post by kelthan »

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.

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

#56

Post by nazgulsenpai »

dev1ycan wrote: post #45

I don't feel bad for anyone who sent their dna to a private capitalistic company. It was always obvious this was gonna happen. Especially when these companies paid so much to politicians like Bernie Sanders to appear on their ads to seem "benign".

Do you feel bad for people who had relatives use the service without them knowing, making them party even though they did not consent?

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

#57

Post by someotherperson »

An alternative take is that they changed their terms of service so that if/when this happens again they'd have more control over the fallout. I think they're totally expecting to get railed for the last one and are preparing for it, but this doesn't mean they can't prepare for the future as well. I imagine other providers will also revise their TOS.

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

#58

Post by oldgradstudent »

willcipriano wrote: post #47
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 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" ?!

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

#59

Post by lp0_on_fire »

throwaway092323 wrote: post #41
kelthan wrote: post #12

Automatically opting-in customers to a more restrictive TOS is pretty suspect, especially given the timing. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that a court would not allow that, given that the TOS was changed AFTER the breach and it's pretty clear that the company is trying to avoid legal issues after-the-fact. I would expect the court would evaluate any breach under the TOS that was in effect at the time of the breach, rath…

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.

Exactly. Same reason construction vehicles have "Stay back 200 feet: not responsible for broken windshields" written on the back.

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

#60

Post by hughw »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #14
verve wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The email I got from 23andMe linked me to legal@23andme.com.

send it to both!

legal@23andme.com rejects my email with the message "Account disabled". So yeah, definitely cc the other address.
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