this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
529 points (96.5% liked)

Technology

60101 readers
1920 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 67 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I had in some ways the opposite 23&Me experience and goals. My parents told me growing up that I had some small native ancestry. This is actually a common myth many Americans have either been told or somehow deluded themselves into believing.

So I did the DNA testing (which I now regret from all the obvious enshittification and privacy reasons) to prove that my ancestry was boring and predictable. Which it was, no indigenous ancestry, just the expected European countries that my great grandparents came from.

They also do a lot of nice health screening things and I think that's probably the much more valuable aspect of it. It really is very American that people are so much more concerned with what DNA says about one's race or ethnicity than about their health and wellbeing.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago

I'm worried about insurance companies getting it and changing rates/services based on my DNA.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Per their terms and conditions

The Services are not intended to tell you anything about your current state of health, or to be used to make medical decisions, including whether or not you should take a medication, how much of a medication you should take, or determine any treatment.

https://www.23andme.com/legal/terms-of-service/

It also seems to be a data harvesting machine that probably has ties to Google

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrifying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/