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
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
If anyone wants my genetic information just come to my door and I’ll supply it to you directly 😏
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.
I feel like the TOS you are subject to is the one you signed when you first used the service. Unless you have been constantly using their service, I can’t see how a new TOS would affect you. I could be WAAY off here because IANAL, but a company can’t just retroactively change the TOS for customers without some kind of action taken by the customers under the new TOS.
Even that’s rather iffy too. If it’s been made so long that a reasonable person cannot be expected to read or understand it, it likely won’t hold up.
Of the courts decide to say, fuck it then it won’t hold up.
If this goes to a class action suit, I expect the judge to not let this change of TOS affect who is covered under the class action suit.
This is just a way to make the customer THINK they can’t sue.
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.
Even it being “questionable” is a fucking outrage – it should be so blatantly, obviously, disallowed that a lawyer should lose their license just for proposing it!
The entire concept is a goddamn farce.
Why would you need proof of delivery? The original email gives instructions. You follow those instructions and can prove you did so with date and timestamps. I don’t see the issue.
You can’t prove that person ever saw that email.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-repudiation
Legally you have to be able to prove someone received a thing. It’s why you get served when you’re sued. An agent physically hands you the complaint (or whatever they’re called). If the papers were put in the mail the person being sued could say they never received them.
Can’t you trace an email and prove it was delivered? Even mail you sign for only proves you received it, not that you opened it.
No. You can confirm the server received it. That’s different from a user opening it and reading it
My ISP, phone company, bank, insurance company and everyone else send me TOS related messages from time to time. Usually, the message is something along the lines of: “We’re altering the deal. Pray we don’t alter it any further”
It doesn’t seem fair to me, but since everyone is doing it, there probably isn’t a law against it.
Every time an ISP does that around here they send you a notification via certified mail with a prepaid return envelope and a service cancellation form included - you can decide to not continue using the service without any early cancellations fees etc.
If they fail to do that they get fined by consumer protection agency, are required to return any fees they charged based on the change and they get to start over - send a notification that follows the rules resetting the clock for those who opt to cancel
You’d think that, but you know those “don’t remove or warranty is void” stickers on stuff? They’re illegal.
Not illegal, just not legally binding.
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Good fuck my guy, lay off the casual racism
Whoa bud 4chan is the other way
The real question is why would you put your genome into the hands of a company without a compelling reason beyond “This sounds cool”
It being cool is a compelling reason.
“I use discord cos It is so cool”…
So I can prove that I’m 3% black and get my word pass. /s
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https://forums.escapistmagazine.com/threads/facebook-ceo-people-who-trust-me-are-dumb-f-cks.48899/
A lot of people didn’t, but their relatives did and now theyre implicated.
bruh
If you were dumb enough to pay someone to take your genome for profit, a second grift is just icing on the cake.
Isn’t this illegal?
No, but that doesn’t mean it’s legally enforceable.
You can’t sign away negligence in a contract.
Thanks for sharing this
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.
Yes, and if my genome was stolen I’d probably be dead.
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There needs to be a c/Literally lol
They didn’t lose it, they know exactly where it went
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.
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What would you call it, unmitigated benevolence?
Ok now that I have that out of my system, let’s see…
trick /'trik/ noun
scheme /ˈskēm/ noun
especially : a crafty or secret one
outwit /au̇t-ˈwit/ verb
What we have, in the immediate wake of a massive security breach, mind you, is an attempt to benefit the company by getting the better of the customers, writ large, by altering how disputes are handled. By taking the unusual step of requiring explicit opt-out from the new TOS within a short timeframe, they make it more likely that customers will “accept” the TOS without even realizing it and be in a worse position as a result.
That qualifies as an act intended to outwit customers.
Or, to put it another way, if they had contacted customers and asked for an opt in for the new TOS, nobody would consider that an attempt to outwit.
So, yeah, this is a trick to further fuck over customers who are already victims of the company’s poor security practices.
Somebody – preferably a goddamn judge – really needs to start explaining to all these sociopathic corporate lawyers that…
They sent an email that seems standard and claims to be beneficial. I would have ignored it if I wasn’t aware of the current situation
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I hate it when people act dumb like this. You know why it’s an issue because of the opt out instead of the normal opt in.
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“We’ve made a change to the TOS, you have 30days to opt-out”
The TOS :
By using this service you agree to these terms :
5 paragraphs of legal gibberish.
+ We reserve the right to chop your balls off at any time.
5 more paragraphs of legal gibberish.
“If you didn’t get our notice in the first place, FUCK YOU!! WE DON’T CARE!!”
You wouldn’t read that email either and you know it.