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This has huge, far reaching privacy concerns. How many folks here would like to give their DNA information to private equity?
by peterlk 6y ago
This has huge, far reaching privacy concerns.
How many folks here would like to give their DNA information to private equity?
- swarnie_ 6y agoI don't see it making a difference. If someone is willing to give away their DNA in the first place i doubt they care who to. Outside of this community how many people submitting their DNA to Ancestry looked up their privacy, data selling policies and shareholders? I don't imagine many.
- snarf21 6y agoHopefully your family members haven't already done so for you.
- llsf 6y agoExactly this! This is not just a personal privacy decision (i.e. I give or not my DNA). If any of my family gave their DNA, I am now traceable. This is exponentially bad, and not regulated accordingly. The Blackstone Group is the private equity owning Motel 6... the very same Motel 6 that voluntary helped ICE by giving guest lists ?!? So what is next ? They also owned several companies in healthcare, including a company doing respiratory equipments and another one providing medical services. DNA collection should be regulated way more strictly.
- csomar 6y agoNot trying to defend blackstone but they have half a trillion in AUM. I highly doubt they were directly involved in such decision.
- obmelvin 6y agoI don't understand what their AUM has to do with it?
- derivagral 6y agoI believe GP was trying to say that management of the owning company doesn't necessarily spend a great deal of time going through all the ongoing details of every business owned, compared to a company that might only have Ancestry.com as an asset. I don't think this really alleviates concerns people have though.
- t-c-h 6y agoYou can be traced in many, many ways. From all the websites you visit, the accounts you have, social media posts and pictures, connections with others, camera's outside, your car, your job, whatever more. There's very little true privacy in modern urban life. Yet, while privacy issues are a point of concern among geneticists when it comes to direct-to-consumer genetic testing, the general points of caution are directed to relational and emotional issues. Many people think little of the relational consequences genetic testing can bear, where family members are implicated often unwillingly. Another point is that people often make up wrong conclusions about their results and see them as some infallible passport of who they are, while the tests are limited in what they actually can tell. Or let's say tests show you have a disposition for increased disease risk. I doubt many give it a really good thought of whether they truly want to know and live with said knowledge for the rest of their lives.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 6y ago"Blackstone is buying Ancestry.com from private equity firms Silver Lake, Spectrum Equity and Permira." That cat was already out of the bag.
- dannykwells 6y agoThis - everyone freaking out over this is right, but ummmm, years too late.
- BurningFrog 6y agoDid it many years ago. Would do it again.
- RocketSyntax 6y agoyou have no idea how deep this goes. nations are selling data at population scale
- pontifier 6y agoI'm not sure DNA is something that is even possible to protect. You leave samples of it everywhere you go, and you share most of it with everyone else anyway. I happen to think my DNA is pretty good, but it's not like I had anything to do with that. It's more like I happen to like the seed for the minecraft world I'm playing. I don't feel like I own my DNA in the same way that I own property or things. It helped me be who I am, but why would I stop someone else from looking at it or trying to use it in some way? As long as I get to keep using it, I'm happy.