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barista commented on 23andMe Is Terrifying, But Not for the Reasons the FDA Thinks scientificamerican.com/ar... · Posted by u/hepha1979
barista commented on 23andMe Is Terrifying, But Not for the Reasons the FDA Thinks scientificamerican.com/ar... · Posted by u/hepha1979
Basically all we know in medical science, which we all benefit from, is based on health data collected from other indivivuals, often (and preferably) many individuals. Collecting data and using that to gain knowledge is not a bad thing per se.
If it was a institution where people expressly donated their data for research then that is the right way to do it. The concern is about selling that data and using it for other commercial purposes. Another concern is about creating this single repository of data that can then be exploited my incremental updates to TOS that nobody reads or understands.
barista commented on 23andMe Is Terrifying, But Not for the Reasons the FDA Thinks scientificamerican.com/ar... · Posted by u/hepha1979
Sure, that was an awkward transition, but you gave up too early. One paragraph later justifies this:
"What the search engine is to Google, the Personal Genome Service is to 23andMe. The company is not exactly hiding its ambitions. “The long game here is not to make money selling kits, although the kits are essential to get the base level data,” Patrick Chung, a 23andMe board member, told FastCompany last month. “Once you have the data, [the company] does actually become the Google of personalized health care.”
The author is trying to use that relationship to stress a point which stands no matter whether the founder is related to Google founder or not. Take that piece of information out and the point that the author is making still stands. Google has showed us that by luring people to share their private information, it is possible to sell your users eventually. Now you don't have to be related to a Google founder to learn and use that business model. If there was any other company that followed the same practice and didn't explicitly allow me to own my data and delete it from their databases I'd be worried about that company as well. No matter whether they are related to Google or not. The relationship to Google just make me extra worried because of the history of Google.
> [Google makes money ] ... By parceling out that information to help advertisers target you, with or without your consent
Umm. No. 1) don't use Google services. Or 2) go to your account settings and disable personalised ads or 3) browse in incognito mode, etc. There are loads of ways to choose not to be targeted by ads. People seem to constantly feel a need to exaggerate what Google actually does. They don't "sell your data", they don't "track" you, they don't do anything "without your consent".
Not that I think Google needs any help defending themselves here - but what really concerns me is that we can very quickly slide into a kind of technophobia that will take a cynical viewpoint on every form of new technology. Anyone here involved in a startup can be a victim of that, and the level of acceptance by society of new technologies and change is really, really crucial to moving society forward.
Is that really possible today? Have you tried to browse the web without trying to hit Google servers? Do you know how hard it is? No common man is capable of doing it frankly.