Ancestry.com takes DNA ownership rights from customers and their relatives

Aggregated News

https://thinkprogress.org/ancestry-com-takes-dna-ownership-rights-from-customer…

Two Q-tip swabs are vertically positioned next to each other. Blurred in the background, there is a container filled with other q-tips.

A word to the wise: Read the complete terms of service.

Don’t use the AncestryDNA testing service without actually reading the Ancestry.com Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. According to these legal contracts, you still own your DNA, but so does Ancestry.com.

The family history website Ancestry.com is selling a new DNA testing service called AncestryDNA. But the DNA and genetic data that Ancestry.com collects may be used against “you or a genetic relative.” According to its privacy policies, Ancestry.com takes ownership of your DNA forever. Your ownership of your DNA, on the other hand, is limited in years.

It seems obvious that customers agree to this arrangement, since all of them must “click here to agree” to these terms. But, how many people really read those contacts before clicking to agree? And how many relatives of Ancestry.com customers are also reading?

There are three significant provisions in the AncestryDNA Privacy Policy and Terms of Service to consider on behalf of yourself and your genetic relatives: (1) the perpetual, royalty-free, world-wide license to use your DNA; (2) the warning that DNA...

Biohackers are Pirating a Cheap Version of a Million-dollar Gene Therapy

By Alex Pearlman, MIT Technology Review | 08.30.2019

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Citing the tremendous cost of new drugs, an international group of biohackers say they are creating a knockoff of a million-dollar gene therapy.

The drug being copied is Glybera, a gene therapy that was the world’s most expensive drug when...

Human Genetic Modification

Dr. Stuart Newman: “It Seems to Me That We Are Headed for A Techno-Eugenic Future”

By Mohsen Abdelmoumen, American Herald Tribune | 09.05.2019

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Prospective people are not any doctor’s patient, nor are they any future parent’s property to be made to order.

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Congress Wants to Give Companies the Right to Own Our Genes

By Lori Andrews, Guest Contributor | 06.18.2019

Biopolitical Times

Editors note: This article was originally published on ourbodiesourselves.org and is reposted here with generous permission from Our Bodies Our Selves.

Six years ago, on June 13, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court in AMP v. Myriad took a great step forward for women’s health by unanimously ruling that human genes could not be patented. Now a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives have released a bill that would allow companies to own our genes once again.

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U.S. Federal

No One Should Own Our Genes

By Pete Shanks | 06.11.2019

Biopolitical Times

Six years ago, the question of who, if anyone, could patent a human gene was (we thought) settled by the Supreme Court in what is known as the Myriad decision. Their answer was, no one: human genes may not be patented because a “naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible.”

Unfortunately, a small but influential coalition in Congress is trying hard to overturn that decision.

A key part of the 2013 Supreme Court ruling was to...

U.S. Federal

Ancestry.com takes DNA ownership rights from customers and their relatives

Perspectives

A word to the wise: Read the complete terms of service.

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