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

  • @tty5@lemmy.world
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    1301 year 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.

    • @grue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Accepting a ToS update simply by virtue of no action is also questionable

      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.

      • gian
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        -221 year ago

        Nope. The silent consent concept is a nice thing, it solve a lof of problems both for companies and private citizens. I could offer plenty of examples of the correct use of the concept that solve problems.

        23andMe is just doing a big dick move trying to avoid to be sued for the leak.

          • gian
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            101 year ago

            Replying to you, but it is valid also for @porksoda@lemmy.world.

            If you ask for permission to do certain works in your house, you present the project to your city council, or the required office, and if after a given time (depending on what what you want to do) they don’t object then you have the permission. Before the introduction of the silent consent, you have no idea about how many time you need to wait before you get an answer and it was prone to corruption while now the “yes” is the default unless there are real problems. It is not a perfect solution, but it is way better than before.
            Basically all the interactions with the authorities are on a silent consent base when the authority in question does not need to produce something to give back.

            All the minor changes to the contract with banks, utility companies and so on: they propose the new terms and if you don’t accept in a given time from the moment you read it you accept it. By law in the event I refuse the new terms, I don’t end with the old ones but the contract end and in the case it has penalties for early terminations, these are nullified if the penalties are applied to the other side.
            On the other hand, this way a company has a certain deadline after which the new terms come into effect and as a side bonus the fact that it has to handle only the exceptions (who don’t accept) and not all the ones that are ok.

            Wedding publications, since we have not the whole “if you disagree to this marriage talk now or shut up forever” part of the ceremony, to be sure that there is no hidden problems we put an announce in a designated public place (usually a notice board at the town hall and/or your church) for a given period of time, usually 2 or 3 weeks, and then if nobody object you can marry.
            I agree that this is probably something old that were done back at the time but it work on the same principle. Of course now there are other ways to know if someone is already married (on the civil side) or is divorced (on the religious side) or there are some hindrances.

            And before someone ask, we also have examples where this approach were shoot down: the last of these is when a big back decide to move part of their clients to a virtual back (a different branch of itself) and they were stopped on the basis that this change it too radical to be done this way (even if the notice was about 6 months). Other cases hit utilities companies which in some cases where forced by a judge to pay compensation to the customers because what they done was basically illegal and the silent consent where then void.

        • PorkSoda
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          261 year ago

          I would like some of your plenty of examples.

    • @Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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      -331 year ago

      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.

      • @NAK@lemmy.world
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        531 year ago

        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.

        • @Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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          11 year ago

          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.

          • @NAK@lemmy.world
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            11 year ago

            No. You can confirm the server received it. That’s different from a user opening it and reading it

    • @Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      61 year 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.

  • @jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    271 year 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.

  • @Buttons@programming.dev
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    1 year 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.

  • @Thteven@lemmy.world
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    491 year ago

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

  • @chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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    371 year ago

    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.

    • @brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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      121 year ago

      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.

  • em2
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    21 year 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.