Interesting People mailing list archives
Re Ancestry.com takes DNA ownership rights from customers and their relatives
From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2017 11:44:23 -0700
Begin forwarded message:
From: Mark Blacknell <mb () blacknell net> Date: May 24, 2017 at 9:28:00 AM PDT To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: ip <ip () listbox com> Subject: Re: [IP] Ancestry.com takes DNA ownership rights from customers and their relatives The interesting thing here is that it's hard to tell whether this is lazy lawyering or aggressive lawyering. It's much easier to craft a clause that says "We'll take it all" than one that says "We'll take exactly what we need, no more and no less." But then, if the business model finds the profits in sharing this information, it's very much about taking it all, relying on the fact that customers don't really understand what they're agreeing to. This is an issue across industries, of course, but this is one of those cases where I wish that law school first year contracts class discussion of invalidating contracts "as against public policy" were still operative - http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/oslj/files/2012/03/70.5.Sullivan.pdf As best I can tell, that's about as relevant to today's law as all of the cornerstone antitrust cases I studied in the 90s. mb () blacknell net +1.202.270.5909 Washington, DCOn Wed, May 24, 2017 at 11:50 AM, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com> Date: Wed, May 24, 2017 at 8:47 AM Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Ancestry.com takes DNA ownership rights from customers and their relatives To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com> Ancestry.com takes DNA ownership rights from customers and their relatives A word to the wise: Read the complete terms of service. By Joel Winston May 17 2017 <https://thinkprogress.org/ancestry-com-takes-dna-ownership-rights-from-customers-and-their-relatives-dbafeed02b9e> 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 information may be used against “you or a genetic relative”; (3) your waiver of legal rights. 1. Perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide license to use your DNA AncestryDNA, a service of Ancestry.com, owns the “World’s Largest Consumer DNA Database” that contains the DNA of more than 3 million people. The AncestryDNA service promises to, “uncover your ethnic mix, discover distant relatives, and find new details about your unique family history with a simple DNA test.” For the price of $99 dollars and a small saliva sample, AncestryDNA customers get an analysis of their genetic ethnicity and a list of potential relatives identified by genetic matching. Ancestry.com, on the other hand, gets free ownership of your genetic information forever. Technically, Ancestry.com will own your DNA even after you’re dead. Specifically, by submitting DNA to AncestryDNA, you agree to “grant AncestryDNA and the Ancestry Group Companies a perpetual, royalty-free, world-wide, transferable license to use your DNA, and any DNA you submit for any person from whom you obtained legal authorization as described in this Agreement, and to use, host, sublicense and distribute the resulting analysis to the extent and in the form or context we deem appropriate on or through any media or medium and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed or discovered.” Basically, Ancestry.com gets to use or distribute your DNA for any research or commercial purpose it decides and doesn’t have to pay you, or your heirs, a dime. Furthermore, Ancestry.com takes this royalty-free license in perpetuity (for all time) and can distribute the results of your DNA tests anywhere in the world and with any technology that exists, or will ever be invented. With this single contractual provision, customers are granting Ancestry.com the broadest possible rights to own and exploit their genetic information. [snip] Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/> Archives | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now
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- Re Ancestry.com takes DNA ownership rights from customers and their relatives Dave Farber (May 24)