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

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- 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]

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