Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire “substantially all” of 23andMe’s assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.

  • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    23andme was named “invention of the year” by Time in 2008

    perfect, I am now openly pro Trump, Zuckerberg and also Putin, all of whom have been named Time Person of the year from 2007 onwards. This is because I don’t even bother to understand what Time nominates, but also entirely willing to base very important political or life decisions around this. If you call this out as being incredibly fucking stupid you are victim blaming me. Just because I do not have ever read the magazines nominations of awards that I base my being around does not mean you can attack me for this.

    Orphans, people with absent parents, decedents of slaves, the list goes on for folks who would understandably go for an affordable way to access their genetic history.

    This is slightly more sympathetic but also 23andme would help you zilch in this scenario because this is not what they do. But I do understand how coming from a vulnerable emotionial position might lead you there.

    I’m saddened to see more victim blaming here than anger at the ToS/privacy policy fuckery and a complete lack of consumer protection.

    Having said beforementioned, there is 0 consumer protection that would prevent this scenario. This bullshit has to rank among the largest DNA Databse in the world, and, as such, would be the target and has probably been leaked to every major and minor intelligence service in the world since years, even before they just openly sold it off to god knows who. The crux of data security is that while it is a society wide issue, it is also a personal issue. You can’t outregulate some idiot just handing over all their data for funsies or SECURITY to whatever entity, to point out the big ones. This holds true regardless of socioeconomic system in place, because the entire point is that it is your data, not anybody elses.

    Also, and I do agree I am malding over this, I want to point out that people have been warning about 23andme for a decade for obvious reasons and largely got ignored as being doomer nerds