Important headlines for May 31st - "Die In's at Disney? And DNA...
Bottom Line: These are stories you shouldn't miss and my takes on them...
From Disney to Big Sugar, Publix isn't the only big-name Florida business backing Adam Putnam - Sun Sentinel
Hot Take: There you go. The predictable phase two of the chilling political effort to threaten companies who donate to politicians the fake journalists at the Sun Sentinel don't like. Publix was the big first warning shot but you always knew this was next. What the Sun Sentinel and the boycotting bigots are really after is a permanent political outcome. The big picture wasn't just about donated chicken tender subs and Adam Putnam. It's a threat to attempt to shame/harm all businesses that they disagree with politically to send a stronger, bigger picture message about political donations to candidates they don't favor. I wonder if David Hogg & co. will now stage a "Die In" at Disney?
Excerpt: It markets its DNA kits with promises that tug at the heartstrings: Discover ancestors. Strengthen family ties. Understand your life.
Aided by venture capital and a flood of savvy marketing, Ancestry LLC has grown to become the world’s largest DNA testing conglomerate. Since 2012, it has lured more than 5 million people to spit into tubes and add their genetic code to the world’s largest private database of DNA. It has also banked away the world’s largest collection of human spittle, numbering in the hundreds of gallons.
In the age of Facebook and Google, consumers seem comfortable surrendering their personal information to corporations that aggregate it and monetize it. But Ancestry and other DNA testing companies have added an audacious tweak: Consumers are now paying to hand over their genetic code, their most sensitive individual identifier, to companies that could monetize it far into the future.
Hot Take: It's an interesting point. In this age of ID theft here we are handing over genetic information to a third party to learn about our family. In the story it's pointed out that Ancestry has been the target of hackers seeking this info and while this hasn't been addressed. It makes me wonder if one family member submitting information could potentially lead to negative implications for other family members if that data fell into the wrong hands. The bigger point is simply considering the scope of what we're doing when we're trying to find out more about our family history. Probably to no one's surprise people aren't reading the fine print to fully consider the implications of what they're submitting to when sending samples and info. At a certain point we can make ourselves paranoid but being fully informed before using these services is probably a good idea.
Until tomorrow...