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Bankrupt 23andMe Just Sold Off All Your DNA Data
(futurism.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
684 points (99.0% liked)
Privacy
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I’ve publicly uploaded mine to anywhere that’s take it anyway who cares. Unless you’re American there’s no huge risk. If they use the anonymised data to discover new drugs and treatment then I’m glad to contribute. It’s only <0.1% of your genome.
The 99.9% similarity refers to humans having nearly identical DNA sequences, but that doesn’t mean we express our genes the same way. Gene expression varies widely due to regulatory sequences, environmental factors, epigenetics, methylation, and more.
23andMe only analyzes a small, curated set of common SNPs, covering maybe 5 - 10 percent of the known functional and trait-associated genome. It doesn’t sequence most rare variants, the full exome, or structural elements.
Recent research is also starting to highlight the growing importance of the dark genome, revealing that non-coding regions we’ve dismissed as junk DNA play significant roles in regulation and disease.
No huge risk at the minute. While I'm all for you doing whatever you want with your DNA it doesn't make uploading it to everywhere that will take it a particularly good idea.