Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
freedom-to-tinker.com
Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
1–10 of 41 posts
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#2This is one of the reasons I've never sent a DNA swab to Ancestry.com, or 23andme. If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat - but the potential losses+ outweigh the gains%.
+ admittedly, I'm not even sure what the worst case scenarios are, but that just makes them even scarier.
% ooooh, I might learn that I have a predisposition to alcoholism and rectal cancer? That's nothing that my Russian father couldn't have told me.
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#3"Research has shown that users are already desensitized to privacy and security warnings."
This along with the quote below are my biggest takeaways from this article:
"it can be difficult to avoid information leakage through URLs or cookies or more sophisticated attacks."
People may not even realize they are giving the keys away until it's too late. It's unlikely that a dialog box for confirmation would be explicit anyway, especially if Ancestry and others stand to monetarily gain from your DNA.
Moreover, if you're a malicious actor you can simply display an ad from Ancestry and when you have a logged in user you could potentially identify a whole host of other information that can be associated with their email and other aspects of their identity. The malicious actor could resell this to even worse offenders.
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#4This is one of the reasons I've never sent a DNA swab to Ancestry.com, or 23andme. If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat - but the potential losses+ outweigh the gains%. + admittedly, I'm not even sure what the worst case scenarios are, but that just makes them even scarier. % ooooh, I might learn that I have a predisposition to alcoholism and rectal cancer? That's nothing that my Russian father coul…
> I'd do it in a heartbeat
If the benefits aren't really significant why are you interested in doing so anonymously?
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#5This is one of the reasons I've never sent a DNA swab to Ancestry.com, or 23andme. If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat - but the potential losses+ outweigh the gains%. + admittedly, I'm not even sure what the worst case scenarios are, but that just makes them even scarier. % ooooh, I might learn that I have a predisposition to alcoholism and rectal cancer? That's nothing that my Russian father coul…
> If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat
You can. See "How to use 23andMe without violating your genetic privacy", https://www.abine.com/blog/2013/23andme-without-violating-yo....
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#6Ancestry.com is run by trolls on par with the current owners of Sourceforge. Absolutely nothing surprises me when it comes to that site.
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#7This is one of the reasons I've never sent a DNA swab to Ancestry.com, or 23andme. If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat - but the potential losses+ outweigh the gains%. + admittedly, I'm not even sure what the worst case scenarios are, but that just makes them even scarier. % ooooh, I might learn that I have a predisposition to alcoholism and rectal cancer? That's nothing that my Russian father coul…
> If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat You can. See "How to use 23andMe without violating your genetic privacy", https://www.abine.com/blog/2013/23andme-without-violating-yo... .
Unlike the author of that article, don't publish screenshots of your exact results online. With the percentage risk and the ethnic background, it's likely trivial for 23andme to identify exactly which fake profile Sarah A. Downey used for her test.
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#8This is one of the reasons I've never sent a DNA swab to Ancestry.com, or 23andme. If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat - but the potential losses+ outweigh the gains%. + admittedly, I'm not even sure what the worst case scenarios are, but that just makes them even scarier. % ooooh, I might learn that I have a predisposition to alcoholism and rectal cancer? That's nothing that my Russian father coul…
> If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat You can. See "How to use 23andMe without violating your genetic privacy", https://www.abine.com/blog/2013/23andme-without-violating-yo... .
Once I checked out, I went to my real, personal inbox to
complete the 23andMe registration by clicking the confirmation
email, which was forwarded to me from the alias email address.
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#9This is one of the reasons I've never sent a DNA swab to Ancestry.com, or 23andme. If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat - but the potential losses+ outweigh the gains%. + admittedly, I'm not even sure what the worst case scenarios are, but that just makes them even scarier. % ooooh, I might learn that I have a predisposition to alcoholism and rectal cancer? That's nothing that my Russian father coul…
> If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat You can. See "How to use 23andMe without violating your genetic privacy", https://www.abine.com/blog/2013/23andme-without-violating-yo... .
Of course, now you have to trust that Abine won't pas your information on to NSA.
Re: Ancestry.com can use your DNA to target ads
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I could do so anonymously, I'd do it in a heartbeat You can. See "How to use 23andMe without violating your genetic privacy", https://www.abine.com/blog/2013/23andme-without-violating-yo... .
Once I checked out, I went to my real, personal inbox to complete the 23andMe registration by clicking the confirmation email, which was forwarded to me from the alias email address. LOL. Thanks for posting this bit of comedy.
How was that problematic? I don't see the issue, especially given that the author was on a VPN and using Firefox in Private Browsing mode while running DoNotTrackMe.