My mom got 23 and Me kits for my wife and I for Christmas. My side of the family has always been in to genealogy. We have a considerable amount of relatives who work in the sciences in one form or another and had some known historical family links back to Europe. I knew my wife wasn't a fan because she is pretty private but I didn't have a good feeling about it either. She was thrilled/relieved when she found out I wasn't that in to it at all and had the same concerns. She assumed she was in for a fight because I'm less conservative and of course it was a gift from my mom.
Steve - 7 years ago
Wasn't interested before, still am not. People are so concerned with the risk that their credit card information might end up on line (when you can easily cancel a credit card) . Some of these same people are more than willing to send in their DNA to be stored for years to come. How many hackers do we think are actively working to find their way into those databases?
MerryMe - 7 years ago
My blue collar family had at least 3 separate discussions related to this over the weekend.
Paul - 7 years ago
Never had a desire to do this and still don't
Wary Consumer - 7 years ago
When you add to the privacy breaches the fact that Chinese companies have invested in the DNA companies and are now offshoring our genetic data it should give all of us pause. Additionally, you're paying for a service, so unlike free sites where you basically pay with your data you're basically paying twice, since you know they're going to reuse or resell your data. It's crazy that people don't stop to consider this when clicking through end user agreements that they don't read.
Regretful Reader - 7 years ago
A friend convinced us a number of years ago to do 23 and me based on how interesting it was to track down relatives and learn your likely genetic heritage. It was after GINA and after elimination of pre-existing conditions for health coverage, so we felt less concerned about the impact on our ability to get insurance. Now in the current era with rollback of many protections and additional rollbacks likely, I wish we hadn’t done it. There were no real advantages, some risks (to me and to relatives) and I didn’t really need to know that I’m more Neanderthal than my spouse!
Bob - 7 years ago
Never give out your true identity, just leave a silver bullet
My mom got 23 and Me kits for my wife and I for Christmas. My side of the family has always been in to genealogy. We have a considerable amount of relatives who work in the sciences in one form or another and had some known historical family links back to Europe. I knew my wife wasn't a fan because she is pretty private but I didn't have a good feeling about it either. She was thrilled/relieved when she found out I wasn't that in to it at all and had the same concerns. She assumed she was in for a fight because I'm less conservative and of course it was a gift from my mom.
Wasn't interested before, still am not. People are so concerned with the risk that their credit card information might end up on line (when you can easily cancel a credit card) . Some of these same people are more than willing to send in their DNA to be stored for years to come. How many hackers do we think are actively working to find their way into those databases?
My blue collar family had at least 3 separate discussions related to this over the weekend.
Never had a desire to do this and still don't
When you add to the privacy breaches the fact that Chinese companies have invested in the DNA companies and are now offshoring our genetic data it should give all of us pause. Additionally, you're paying for a service, so unlike free sites where you basically pay with your data you're basically paying twice, since you know they're going to reuse or resell your data. It's crazy that people don't stop to consider this when clicking through end user agreements that they don't read.
A friend convinced us a number of years ago to do 23 and me based on how interesting it was to track down relatives and learn your likely genetic heritage. It was after GINA and after elimination of pre-existing conditions for health coverage, so we felt less concerned about the impact on our ability to get insurance. Now in the current era with rollback of many protections and additional rollbacks likely, I wish we hadn’t done it. There were no real advantages, some risks (to me and to relatives) and I didn’t really need to know that I’m more Neanderthal than my spouse!
Never give out your true identity, just leave a silver bullet