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The 23andme page on "DNA relatives" says this though: > If you choose to participate in the DNA Relatives feature, you have multiple privacy options to suit yo

The 23andme page on "DNA relatives" says this though: > If you choose to participate in the DNA Relatives feature, you have multiple privacy options to suit your individual preferences. For complete privacy, you can opt out of DNA Relatives entirely. How is a feature opt-in if you need to opt-out to get "complete privacy"? What does complete privacy mean in this case and how does it compare to privacy that you can reasonably expect? I call bullshit on their statement that the feature is opt-in.

kube-system 3y ago
When you sign up they present you with the option to fill out a profile for use of the DNA relatives feature. You can either fill it out and join, or click a different button saying you don't want to join.
- Freedom2 3y ago
  Maybe before, but that wasn't my friend's experience when signing up.
  - stainablesteel 3y ago
    there's laws around this topic and what is accessible for the sake of murder and kidnapping cases that requires people opt in, so i don't think that would be the case
ianferrel 3y ago
I think this might just be a slight difference in language usage. "opt-in" and "opt-out" as adjectives mean "something that is default off/on (respectively) that you can choose to select the other mode". But "opt in" and "opt out" as verbs mean "choose to/not to participate". So you can in fact "opt out" of an "opt-in" feature. It means choosing to keep the default of not opting in.
- deadbeeves 3y ago
  That's a misuse of those terms. If you're presented with a switch that's in the the on position you don't switch it off, it's arguable that you've opted to leave it on. If you never realized the switch existed it would definitely be incorrect to say that you've opted to leave it off, since you can't make decisions about things you don't know exist. Yet, both cases would appear the same if all you know is which users had an opt-out setting in the in position.
  - ianferrel 3y ago
    It's not a misuse, it's the natural language meaning of the word "opt", which long predates anything like the opt-in/opt-out usage that refers to default settings.
  - zztop44 3y ago
    The verb “to opt” just means to make a choice. Programmers created the “opt in/opt out” binary as a useful way of describing how new features got rolled out. But it’s perfectly fine to say (for example) that I “out out” of voting, even though voting is an “opt-in feature” of our society (depending on where you live). You could rephrase the 23andme statement to be something like “users of this feature can choose from a range of privacy settings. For complete privacy, do not use this feature (which is the default setting).”
    - Phemist 3y ago
      This use of opt-out is really an extreme edge case to be honest. There is such a heavy emphasis on civic duty, part of which is to vote in all kinds of elections, that even though the system might strictly be an opt-in voting system, everybody _expects_ you to have already opted-in. To be honest, as somebody not from the US, I don't even understand why you need to go through any hoops to vote. All of it just seems like voting suppression to me. Anyway, this strong social expectation to vote is the only reason you can even remotely say that you are "opting-out" of voting. Any other case, where a decision to be made only exists really as a feature in the UI, there is a much tighter relation between the implementation of the UI feature being by default on (thus "opt-out") and the way that we speak about it being "opt-out". If thus, by their own admission, there are things to opt-out of, then this is by definition an opt-out feature. Claiming the opposite is disingenuous.

kube-system 3y ago

When you sign up they present you with the option to fill out a profile for use of the DNA relatives feature. You can either fill it out and join, or click a different button saying you don't want to join.

Freedom2 3y ago
Maybe before, but that wasn't my friend's experience when signing up.
- stainablesteel 3y ago
  there's laws around this topic and what is accessible for the sake of murder and kidnapping cases that requires people opt in, so i don't think that would be the case

ianferrel 3y ago

I think this might just be a slight difference in language usage. "opt-in" and "opt-out" as adjectives mean "something that is default off/on (respectively) that you can choose to select the other mode". But "opt in" and "opt out" as verbs mean "choose to/not to participate". So you can in fact "opt out" of an "opt-in" feature. It means choosing to keep the default of not opting in.

deadbeeves 3y ago
That's a misuse of those terms. If you're presented with a switch that's in the the on position you don't switch it off, it's arguable that you've opted to leave it on. If you never realized the switch existed it would definitely be incorrect to say that you've opted to leave it off, since you can't make decisions about things you don't know exist. Yet, both cases would appear the same if all you know is which users had an opt-out setting in the in position.
- ianferrel 3y ago
  It's not a misuse, it's the natural language meaning of the word "opt", which long predates anything like the opt-in/opt-out usage that refers to default settings.
- zztop44 3y ago
  The verb “to opt” just means to make a choice. Programmers created the “opt in/opt out” binary as a useful way of describing how new features got rolled out. But it’s perfectly fine to say (for example) that I “out out” of voting, even though voting is an “opt-in feature” of our society (depending on where you live). You could rephrase the 23andme statement to be something like “users of this feature can choose from a range of privacy settings. For complete privacy, do not use this feature (which is the default setting).”
  - Phemist 3y ago
    This use of opt-out is really an extreme edge case to be honest. There is such a heavy emphasis on civic duty, part of which is to vote in all kinds of elections, that even though the system might strictly be an opt-in voting system, everybody _expects_ you to have already opted-in. To be honest, as somebody not from the US, I don't even understand why you need to go through any hoops to vote. All of it just seems like voting suppression to me. Anyway, this strong social expectation to vote is the only reason you can even remotely say that you are "opting-out" of voting. Any other case, where a decision to be made only exists really as a feature in the UI, there is a much tighter relation between the implementation of the UI feature being by default on (thus "opt-out") and the way that we speak about it being "opt-out". If thus, by their own admission, there are things to opt-out of, then this is by definition an opt-out feature. Claiming the opposite is disingenuous.