A Consumer DNA Testing Company’s Alarming New Marketing Pivot
By Elizabeth Joh,
Slate
| 03. 29. 2019
Sometimes a marketing pivot serves a truth-telling function. A new television ad for the consumer DNA database FamilyTreeDNA asks the public to share their DNA with the company not to find out whether they’re at high risk for breast cancer, whether their ancestors were black, or what their Spotify playlist should include. Instead, the father of Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted in 2002, observes that “when a loved one is a victim of a violent crime, families want answers. … If you are one of the millions of people who have taken a DNA test, your help can provide the missing link.”
FamilyTreeDNA makes explicit the use of consumer DNA testing that law enforcement agencies have increasingly relied on to solve cases. When police identified Joseph DeAngelo in 2018 as the suspected Golden State Killer responsible for a series of rapes and murders in California several decades ago, they did so with the aid of genetic genealogy: the combination of genetic matching and traditional genealogical methods. Police uploaded crime scene DNA to GEDmatch, a free service where people...
Related Articles
Following a long-standing CGS tradition, we present a selection of our favorite Biopolitical Times posts of the past year.
In 2025, we published up to four posts every month, written by 12 authors (staff, consultants and allies), some in collaboration and one simply credited to CGS.
These titles are presented in chronological order, except for three In Memoriam notices, which follow. Many more posts that are worth your time can be found in the archive. Scroll down and “VIEW...
By Jonathan Matthews, GMWatch | 12.11.2025
In our first article in this series, we investigated the dark PR tactics that have accompanied Colossal Bioscience’s de-extinction disinformation campaign, in which transgenic cloned grey wolves have been showcased to the world as resurrected dire wolves – a...
By Jenny Lange, BioNews | 12.01.2025
A UK toddler with a rare genetic condition was the first person to receive a new gene therapy that appears to halt disease progression.
Oliver, now three years old, has Hunter syndrome, an inherited genetic disorder that leads to physical...
By Simar Bajaj, The New York Times | 11.27.2025
A common cold was enough to kill Cora Oakley.
Born in Morristown, N.J., with virtually no immune system, Cora was diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency, a rare genetic condition that leaves the body without key white blood cells.
It’s better...
