23andMe just sent out an email trying to trick customers into accepting a TOS change that will prevent you from suing them after they literally lost your genome ro thieves.

Do what it says in the email and email arbitrationoptout@23andme.com that you do not agree with the new terms of service and opt out of arbitration.

If you have an account with them, do this right now.

Here’s an email template for what to write: https://www.patreon.com/posts/94164861

    • Tier 1 Build-A-Bear 🧸@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      This just blows my fucking mind. Same thing happened with Crunchyroll, apparently I could have been part of a class action lawsuit when it was found out that they were selling users data. But I didn’t hear about it, didn’t get any letters and didn’t see the email. The date came and went. Because I didn’t “take action” in time I apparently forfeit my right to my piece of the settlement AND to sue.

      HOW THE FUCK IS THAT LEGAL. How can you make the least amount of effort to notify someone after illegally fucking up their life, then when they don’t respond (because they didn’t see the notification or whatever), say, “well legally that means they’re ok with it, and can’t do anything in the future”

      What the fuck

      • Buttons@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        Send their legal team an email telling them you’re going to update the terms unless you hear from them.

        Also, send a bunch of irrelevant shit about what your doing and thinking about and video games you’re playing first, they’ll probably block your email address and then wont see the legally important email.

      • essteeyou@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The class actions I’ve been part of have said that if I want to retain the right to sue then I have to opt out of the class action. I don’t think it’s possible to be force-opted in, and in that case you should retain the ability to sue.

        I’ve only been in 3 or 4 though, so I don’t know if that’s representative of all class actions.

        • brianorca@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Right, but you have to be in the class to do that. If they didn’t notify you because they don’t think you were in the class, then that shouldn’t reduce you legal options. And if they do think you’re in the class and don’t notify you or send you the settlement, that’s just straight malicious.

      • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Damn I forgot about that Crunchyroll class action. Thanks for reminding me. I got those emails too but I have until the 12th. It’s only $30 but that’s like two Five Guys meals so…

      • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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        11 months ago

        Technically a contract can have anything in it that both parties agree to, unless some are all of those provisions are actively illegal. I would agree that assumed agreement should be illegal. You could probably fight this in court, make the argument that this is a material change to the contract what you did not agree to and would not have agreed to had you been aware of it. But that costs money and lawyers and time.

        • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️@7.62x54r.ru
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          11 months ago

          This feels like the weirdo that Muta covered who was sending out legal notices telling people that if they didn’t take action, he would consider them to be entered into contracts that he wrote.

  • Thteven@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    If anyone wants my genetic information just come to my door and I’ll supply it to you directly 😏

  • Hubi@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    “They lost my genome” is certainly a 2023 phrase.

  • Artyom@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    I had them destroy my sample and delete my data the week they went public, so I’m glad we’ve finally reached the “I told you so” phase of this.

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        If I was that guy I would dig for the leak and search through it. If I would find even a shred of my data, that’s a lawsuit.

        • Tangent5280@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          yeah, and I assume only the pool of people who has requested deletion of their data is in a position to do this. @Artyom you should consider doing this.

  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The real question is why would you put your genome into the hands of a company without a compelling reason beyond “This sounds cool”

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Nobody’s genome was lost. What happened was, users with weak passwords had their accounts compromised, something like less than 2,000 of them, and from those accounts, bad actors were able to access and download family tree data for something like 6.5 million accounts.

    I don’t really see how the data lost is actionable in any way except for the spoofed “Hey gramma! It’s me! I’m in jail and I need bail money!” phone calls.

    • IzzyScissor@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      From what I understand - the first action the bad actors are taking are releasing the family trees to “out” anyone with Jewish relatives.

      So, just hate crimes to start.

    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      One of the typical arguments is selling ancestry history to insurance companies, effectively handing them health data which could lead to up-pricing or rejections for customers with bad health history.

    • JonEFive@midwest.social
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      11 months ago

      I don’t really see how the data lost is actionable in any way

      Agreed unfortunately. An important thing in US law that people often don’t know is that in most cases, you need to prove that you were damaged in some way. Unless the company broke a specific law, you probably just have to accept it until you have problems relating to identity theft. And even when that happens, you’d still need to prove that the the attacker used the lost 23andMe data.

      I personally don’t understand why people use these services in the first place. Let’s all let some private company that we know nothing about build an absolutely massive database of people’s DNA. And let’s voluntarily do it and even pay them for that “service”. Sure, that sounds like a good idea. What could possibly go wrong? Hope your minor curiosity was worth the massive privacy invasion.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I personally don’t understand why people use these services in the first place.

        In my case, I went through 23 and Me because 75% of my DNA comes from sources unknown. No idea who my father was or my maternal grandfather. So being able to fill in those gaps as well as helping to determine medical risk has been very useful.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          helping to determine medical risk has been very useful.

          Thank to the American healthcare system’s lobbyists, if a company sequences your DNA, they can’t give you information related to health.

          Which is why 23andme has a fraction of the stuff they used to.

          I paid $5 to a third party to take my raw 23andme data and output a very nice html file (not online, in a zip file) that checks against common mutations for all types of shit. Not sure if they’re still around, but they automatically delete your data once the HTML is sent out, if I want it again I don’t have to pay again, but I do have to send them the raw data because they don’t have it anymore.

          Because they didn’t sequence it, they can give me all the information without having to be a “healthcare provider” like 23andme would need to be to tell me the same info

      • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Building a massive collection of DNA is a really good thing from a research standpoint. Plus, it’s helping solve a bunch of murder cold cases.

          • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I guess what I meant:

            1. What exactly are “Zionist war participants?”
            2. Who is trying to profile these people?
            3. How does this establish “racial segregation?”

            I’m not trying to be annoying. I genuinely believe you are trying to say something important but I just don’t understand what you mean.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Piracy is theft in the eyes of the law. So because the hackers copied it, your data was lost and you should be compensated for the loss.

  • Buttons@programming.dev
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    11 months ago

    So, our main interactions happened in the past, your fault and abuse of me happened in the past, and now, in the present, you can slip a little “go out of your way or the legal terms governing our interactions in the past will be altered” clause in an email, and it’s all legal?

    (Hold on, let me try applying a rule of thumb that helps me answer legal questions like this: Would this help the rich and powerful maintain riches and power?… Yes. I think the answer to my question above is yes.)

    I’d argue the the interactions and faults of the past should be governed by the agreement we had in the past.

  • nymwit@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Did they lose anyone’s genome? That’s not what’s been reported. They certainly lost customer information and this is definitely a super shitty move to trick you into waiving some rights, but I’ve seen no reporting that says they lost full DNA information.

    • frogfruit@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      They have disabled the download data button and refuse to provide customers with a copy of their own data. I have been trying to get a copy of my data for over a month and they just tell me they’ll consider re-enabling the button in the future.

    • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I would bet money (not much, relax) that they got their shit hacked and locked down by ransomware at least, if not also extracted for sale by the same black hat.

      • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I was under the impression that it was compromised logins of users that were used to get into accounts, afaik they weren’t actually hacked.

        • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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          11 months ago

          That and they link all the genealogy data so the “hackers” got some info on a bunch of people they didn’t hack.

          Probably not as much info as you can scrape from Facebook about any one of them, but some.

  • em2@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    Wow, that’s dirty. The email you need to opt out at is different from what they link. If you don’t respond, you automatically agree to their new TOS which bars you from taking class action against them. Shady af.

  • tty5@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I don’t see how an email that has no proof of delivery (could have ended in spam for example) would be legally binding.

    Accepting a ToS update simply by virtue of no action is also questionable unless provisions permitting that were in the ToS you’ve accepted and even then it would not work in the European Union, because that’s listed in the forbidden clauses registry.