Thank you for calling this what it is - a hack - despite 23andme's strenuous efforts to paint this as the fault of millions of users (see https://blog.23andme.c

Thank you for calling this what it is - a hack - despite 23andme's strenuous efforts to paint this as the fault of millions of users (see https://blog.23andme.com/articles/addressing-data-security-concerns https://blog.23andme.com/articles/addressing-data-security-c...) rather than owning the vast technical or management failure that allowed this to continue undetected for months. Without the risk of a giant fine or, say, jail time, many tech giants can and do get away with managing their data security badly. That's right. It's happened before, and will continue to happen as long as there are no consequences. Note that 23andMe is not the first online genealogy service to get hacked: - In 2017, MyHeritage had 92 million accounts hacked https://www.hackread.com/dna-testing-website-myheritage-hacked-user-accounts-stolen/ https://www.hackread.com/dna-testing-website-myheritage-hack.... - In 2020, MyHeritage users were targeted in a separate phishing scheme. https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/07/security-alert-malicious-phishing-attempt-detected-possibly-connected-to-gedmatch-breach/ https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/07/security-alert-malicious... - GEDmatch admitted “all user permissions were reset” in a 2020 attack. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/hackers-gedmatch-dna-privacy https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/hackers-ge... - Ancestry and Ancestry affiliated companies have had multiple security breaches over the past 10 years (https://www.hackread.com/software-firm-leaks-ancestry-com-user-data/ https://www.hackread.com/software-firm-leaks-ancestry-com-us...) - Ancestry has also destroyed people's archives when it decided it was no longer profitable or important enough to keep them. https://slate.com/technology/2015/04/myfamily-shuttered-ancestry-com-deleted-10-years-of-my-family-history.html https://slate.com/technology/2015/04/myfamily-shuttered-ance... - Last year, FamilySearch belatedly admitted a breach had exposed “users’ full names, genders, email addresses, birth dates, mailing addresses, phone numbers.” https://grahamcluley.com/seven-months-after-it-found-out-familysearch-tells-users-their-personal-data-has-been-breached/ https://grahamcluley.com/seven-months-after-it-found-out-fam... These are incidents that have been made public as required by law. There are surely thousands of other smaller incidents that are not reported, as well as major breaches that the companies themselves don’t even know about yet. And it will continue for years to come until lawsuits or brutal regulations with teeth are enacted.