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

I do wonder whether the data is actually deleted or they just do like every other large tech company and set a “deleted = true” flag that hides it from the user, since actually deleting it and all of its replicates across data centres, backup images, and tape storage is from what I’ve been told, virtually impossible even if the will was there.

Our industry's dark secrets getting exposed like this ... yeah you are right, we don't even need a whistleblower for this :)

It is the law in California, and it is certainly possible at scale, just not cheap or trivial. Presumably, given the intense focus of the state government on their company in particular, they have long since implemented a compliant deletion mechanism!

The question, of course, is whether that same functionality is applied to residents of other states wishing to delete their data…

Damn, on Friday, the California DoJ Attorney General issued a warning to consumers about their data: https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...

This should've been a giveaway that the company was imminently going to go under.

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

Honestly it's always seemed completely insane to me that people signed up for these services.

Possible Pros: You find out you are 20% Norwegian! Fun!

Possible Cons: Grandma is going to prison for an unsolved crime. Assume a non-threatening position and comply with all orders of the new Department of Racial Purity. Also, that's not your real Dad.

I should have access to the data about me, it shouldn't be for sale ever. It's gross that we have access to this technology but only if we give away all our rights to a company even for a paid service.

The murder one is a little more nuanced but ideally it should be a legal matter where it can only be used with your explicit consent and not buried in a TOS. If you don't want to help the police convict your grandma it could not legally be used.

So how does this work in the US?

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?

There are two types of corporate bankruptcy, chapter 7 and 11. Chapter 7 is what you are probably thinking about. Chapter 11 allows for “rehabilitation”, ie. negotiating debt, discharging some, and setting up a plan to get out of bankruptcy

Most of the times when you see the news reporting about prominent/public US companies filing for bankruptcy, it’s chapter 11. Which is also the case here with 23andme

In chapter 7, there is no rehabilitation, the whole company is handed over to a trustee, who is in charge of selling the assets (or abandoning them), and paying back the stakeholders

It really depends on how the people in charge of the bankruptcy, I'd assume preference is to sell the whole business unless it's not viable to do so, then it'd be broken into parts. Breaking into parts makes more sense when the company has several lines of unrelated business, in this case, it's basically one business so breaking it up wouldn't garner more money.

This is chapter 11 bankruptcy, which is basically a way to say "We can't afford to pay our debts, but perhaps we can all come to an arrangement". It puts the courts in a position of oversight so any unreasonable parties can be worked with.

In other countries this may be referred to as voluntary administration, though the exact details of what it all means varies from country to country and I'm not a bankruptcy lawyer.

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