23andMe files for bankruptcy to sell itself

23andMe has been in a deadlock for a while.<p>- The CEO is effectively the control owner of the company, having 49% of the voting right. She has been trying to take the company private for some time.<p>- Last August, she proposed to buy all the outstanding shares at $8 per share. The board rejected. She installed a new board, and submitted her proposal again at $2.53 per share. The board rejected. She tried it a third time at $0.4 per share this month, and the board rejected.<p>- Meanwhile 23andMe was losing $50M every quarter.<p>So, unable to resolve the issue, the board choosed to enter into the bankruptcy process. I hope this relieves 23andMe from the corporate governance nightmare.

Even if you haven&#x27;t personally used their service, if any close relatives have, they already have a sizable amount of information on your genome. They maintain the equivalent of &quot;shadow profiles&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shadow_profile" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shadow_profile</a>) as part of their data model for &quot;ancestry&quot; modeling purposes - for example inferring a paternal haplogroup based on data uploaded by genetic relatives.<p>I can only hope at the end of the day their data doesn&#x27;t end up in the wrong hands. It is their most valuable asset, and this is a way bigger deal than it seems.

Damn, on Friday, the California DoJ Attorney General issued a warning to consumers about their data: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oag.ca.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;attorney-general-bonta-urgently-issues-consumer-alert-23andme-customers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oag.ca.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;press-releases&#x2F;attorney-general-bont...</a><p>This should&#x27;ve been a giveaway that the company was imminently going to go under.

There are troubling privacy issues, but it was able to tell me: &quot;Toe Length Ratio : Likely second toe longer&quot;. I didn&#x27;t even have to look down!<p>Maybe it was a bad idea. But, I figured if we enter a dystopian future, evil health care companies or governments could easily get my DNA if they want to and&#x2F;or simply require that information to get care. When you get blood drawn, do you see what they do with it?<p>Hopefully, what matters is the laws we all fight for and not whether I sent my spit to an internet company in 2022.<p>Anyways, will delete my data.

Already downloaded and deleted my data. It’s so wild that some new buyer could just buy peoples’ genetic data at a fire sale.

As an aside I actually regret signing up for 23andMe, not because this isn&#x27;t a great idea but more because I find the idea that the future having copies of your DNA around we might end up in some weird sci-fi universe where people can be specifically targeted with viruses or profiled in some other way. Not that I&#x27;ll ever be important enough for that to happen but it feels like an invasion of privacy having such personal data lying around in a small text file. To some degree it&#x27;s a copy of who you are.<p>Who knows who will buy all this data after bankruptcy...<p>Does anyone at 23andMe know if when DNA data and account is deleted by them that it is really deleted&#x2F;purged from all backups and systems? Anonymous accounts are available, thanks!

For what it&#x27;s worth, this is on their Data page:<p>&gt; <i>What happens to my data if the company is sold or otherwise changes ownership?</i><p>&gt; <i>If the company does change ownership in the future, your data will remain protected under the current 23andMe Privacy Policy unless and until you are presented with materially new terms, with appropriate advanced notice to review those material changes as required by law.</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;you.23andme.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;edit&#x2F;records&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;you.23andme.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;edit&#x2F;records&#x2F;</a>

Successful Math&#x2F;CS people have a hard time applying it in biotechnology.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;iskander&#x2F;status&#x2F;1903077361152610374" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;iskander&#x2F;status&#x2F;1903077361152610374</a> -- about a dozen of us with math&#x2F;CS backgrounds ditched tech for biomedicine. And we got humbled hard: most of what we did flopped &amp; techies

I have never participated in any of these DNA sites but I have an aunt that pretty much put in our full family tree. Is there anything I can do to remove myself without making an account?

Highly recommend that anyone interested in this company listens to the episode of the Freakonomics Radio podcast about 23andMe:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakonomics.com&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;why-is-23andme-going-under-update&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakonomics.com&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;why-is-23andme-going-under-...</a><p>Seems like they struggled to turn a one-off purchase model into recurring revenue. At some point everyone in the world who cares enough about their DNA has already bought your product.

I thought the CEO was trying to take the company private, for pennies to the dollar which caused the independent board to resign (see: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;investors.23andme.com&#x2F;news-releases&#x2F;news-release-details&#x2F;independent-directors-23andme-resign-board" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;investors.23andme.com&#x2F;news-releases&#x2F;news-release-det...</a>)

I hope ancestry just buys them. They&#x27;ve floated a ton of bad markets and come out unscathed

I take full responsibility, I deleted my data yesterday and now the company has filed for bankruptcy.

Just deleted my data. Who knows who will own it after this?

The immediate reaction here is customer data but I think it’s worth a reminder that this data has significant implications for non customers as well.<p>I nearly cut contact with my mother over he wanting to use 23andme for genealogy purposes. The threat was ugly but as far as I know got her to not do it.<p>There are a lot of people who have now made major choices for others personal data who had little meaningful informed consent. Now it’s up for the highest bidder. I have some small hope the EFF will say something on behalf of consumers and a court will listen. I it pure hopium but it’s all I’ve got.

So how does this work in the US?<p>I thought companies in bankruptcy will be broken apart and its assets sold piecemeal. Can anyone who buy this out of auction get in one piece and debt-free?

I recall when 23andMe was featured on the cover of a popular tech magazine. At the time, I had concerns about the risks of sharing DNA with a company.<p>However, the article highlighted that one of the co-founders was the wife of Google&#x27;s co-founder Sergey Brin, and the company&#x27;s association with (and investment of) Google provided a sense of data security and stability. .... now it might be sold for (data) parts to whoever.

I remember reading an article about how these companies were big bad conglomerates who had complete ownership over valuable personal data. Not really downplaying the potential harm that can come with these &quot;assets&quot; in the wrong hands, but nice to know corporate is so inefficient they couldn&#x27;t even avoid bankruptcy... it will be a long time before they can even hope to orchestrate complex nefarious schemes.

It’s a pity I didn’t upload my sequence here. I imagine in the end the most comprehensive databases win. But @dekhn mentioned PGP and I’m there. Here I am <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;my.pgp-hms.org&#x2F;profile&#x2F;hu81A8CC" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;my.pgp-hms.org&#x2F;profile&#x2F;hu81A8CC</a><p>Let’s see if anything worthwhile comes of it. Feel free to ask me for more. I have the raw reads as well. Email in profile.

I just don’t understand why anyone would ever have used this. I’m not a very private person but this always seemed like giving up so much in return for so little. Not to mention the people that found out negative things like great grandad had three families.<p>I imagine if you try to delete your data now it’s conveniently too late&#x2F;no staff around.

Press release: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;investors.23andme.com&#x2F;news-releases&#x2F;news-release-details&#x2F;23andme-initiates-voluntary-chapter-11-process-maximize" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;investors.23andme.com&#x2F;news-releases&#x2F;news-release-det...</a>

This is unfortunate news for anyone whose data is now one of the assets to be sold to the highest bidder.

How does a company like that go bankrupt? They sell kits for freaking $200. How is that unprofitable?

Good. One awful company that was trying very hard to sell off our genetic data.<p>Wonder what happens to the treasure trove of data they have collected though. Hopefully the data is just &#x27;sudo rm -rf —-no-preserve-root&#x27; and not included as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

My girlfriend really want to do one of these DNA analysis package from one of 23andMe&#x27;s competitors, and she cannot for the life of her understand why I don&#x27;t want to.<p>How do I explain that I don&#x27;t want my DNA analysed and sold around to all sorts of companies?

Well... I&#x27;m an untested person! I never bought into the hype, because I don&#x27;t ever do so. In fact, I told friends of mine in 2021 not to do so either. They said they had the test kit on their counter, and were debating on spitting.

Does initiating deletion through your 23andme profile settings effectively invoke right to be forgotten&#x2F;ensure data will be deleted in 30 days? Or is that effectively a soft delete that requires additional followup for a RTBF request?

Guess we are about to find out how valuable your DNA is.

anyone remember when one of those dna testing companies was offering free dna testings in some atlanta(?) neighborhood, but then someone found out it was being paid by the local PD to try to find dna that matched someone they were looking for?<p>I&#x27;m certain i read about it from HN but i can&#x27;t find any reference to that new anymore.

please go and delete your data, immediately.<p>it&#x27;s not just for you, but for anyone related to you - this database is hugely dangerous thing to have exist, and always has been, but at least notionally was a semi-serious medical business, but is now going to be sold for scrap in an extremely poisonous environment in the US.

Can some billionaire please buy 23andMe&#x27;s corpse and delete all data and physical samples they have?<p>Even if you have never used 23andMe several people you are related to already have so they have a partial genetic profile of you.

Is there any useful dna sequencing offering left on the european market?

SPAC IPO = not long for this earth.

All your chromosomes belong to us.

Well I&#x27;d downloaded our family genomes a while back, and had been attempting to get 23andme to respond in what I consider to be a proper way to GDPR disclosure requests. I&#x27;ve now just used their internal tool to delete our data.<p>I suppose that I&#x27;m fortunate to live in an area covered by GDPR and fairly strong medical data regulations.

yikes, thats all your dna, sold

Some billionaire should be an absolute hero: buy this thing and just shut it down. Delete all the data. Salt the earth. Move on.

Your DNA, now available to the highest bidder.

They really shit the bed on what was probably one of the greatest things in a decade.