Blackstone reportedly buying a majority
stake in Ancestry.com for $4.7 billion
by
Nicolas Vega
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
8/5/2020 1:07:22 PM
Blackstone Group is taking a majority stake in DNA testing business Ancestry.com. The private-equity giant headed by billionaire Stephen Schwarzman is acquiring 75 percent of the family history research business for $4.7 billion, Bloomberg reports. The acquisition would be the first for Blackstone’s massive $25 billion private equity fund. The deal has been in the works for several months, according to the report, and may be announced as soon as Wednesday.(Snip) The Pentagon last winter warned service members to stay away from DNA kits if they got one as a Christmas gift, warning that the genetic tests could put their private
Reply 1 - Posted by:
droopydog 8/5/2020 1:14:34 PM (No. 500860)
I don't see any potential for abuse, do you?
12 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
wilarrbie 8/5/2020 1:21:48 PM (No. 500869)
Never understood why DNA info is a thing for most of us joe-schmoo's anyway. How much does it really matter to know there was an Irish ancestor or a Russian czar or German soldier in our long ago ancestry? Stick with the stories Grampa tells around the Thanksgiving table. Giving up my dna is too much for the tradeoff.
18 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Historybuff 8/5/2020 1:47:47 PM (No. 500885)
I plan to win the Powerball Lottery and find out how many relatives I really have.
49 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Rather Read 8/5/2020 1:51:31 PM (No. 500887)
Read the novel Fair Warning by Michael Connelly. It has a reporter as the hero, and a few digs at fake news but they are easily overlooked. It has a serial killer who stalks his victims via information from DNA tests from legitimate companies that is distributed via the dark web. It's pretty scary. I've often wanted to find out my ancestry from one of these companies, but I don't trust them. Looks like I was right.
10 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
walcb 8/5/2020 1:58:00 PM (No. 500892)
It has helped me find ancestors who supported the Rev war and some who were loyalists and moved to Canada, some who fought for the North and some who fought for the South, some who owned slaves and some who left the family because they didn't believe in slavery and I have even found that I have DNA which proves I had an ancestor who was likely an African slave but no idea who it was. I have found descendants of ancestors who have died in almost every war and lived in every state of the Union after leaving almost every European country. In doing this research it has given me incentive to discover many historic things I was not aware of. If this doesn't interest you I don't care but it does me.
18 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Grounded 8/5/2020 2:05:34 PM (No. 500901)
I just finished Fair Warning as well. It reinforces my natural predilection to hold my personal data as close as possible. Never forget that knowledge is power.
7 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/5/2020 3:30:41 PM (No. 500954)
We have not done this. It has been a fad Christmas gift. Not for us.
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/5/2020 3:32:59 PM (No. 500957)
A Michael Connelly fan, Fair Warning is on my list but I am reading his books in order of publication… Page turners!!!
3 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
nerdowell 8/5/2020 5:06:29 PM (No. 501028)
Wouldn't the insurance companies love to get hold of that database! That was the intent in the first place.
" It's not fair for the healthy to pay the same amount as those predisposed to pose a bigger burden on the system. Besides, there are government subsidies for those deserving it and programs to offset the additional costs for those willing to enroll."
2 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
dbdiva 8/5/2020 5:28:22 PM (No. 501040)
Yeah, I'm cynical and don't trust these businesses. There is no certainy that they'd keep private info private.
On the plus side though cold case murders have been solved after many years when investigators have submitted DNA to them.
But would I submit my DNA? NO!!!!!
0 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
voxpopuli 8/5/2020 6:03:45 PM (No. 501085)
we have been on ancestry.com since it started..
great way to look into histories..
the dna part is bogus and i wouldn't do it for free..
what part of their revenues come from it??
this is the first time i've heard of ancestry.com referred to as a "DNA testing business"!!
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
or gate 8/5/2020 7:45:30 PM (No. 501188)
Plenty of doctored test results.
They can't do genealogy either as they all want to be related to the Indians and the Indians don't want them.
1 person likes this.
#9 Insurance companies have already found a way. Oncologist are sending patients to get genetic testing which doesn't reveal much. It wasn't until after I realized it was all because Medicare now pays for the test.
I have a problem with Ancestry.com because relatives are mixing up the information they enter. In other words I have two Lillian's and a Lily in the family that someone mixed up. Someone trolling reached out to a relative saying their mother was abandoned as a war bride but they didn't have a real name. Just fishing.
0 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
TexaTucky 8/6/2020 8:39:49 AM (No. 501582)
Never wanted to participate in this stuff, but my both my brother and son did Ancestry AND 123&me. I assume that pretty much nails me, gene-wise, if any "dark web" hooligans want to do a number on me.
Curious that not one of these tests showed a drop of native American blood in a family from Kentucky that had long claimed Cherokee ancestry through a great-great-grandfather whose picture clearly looks like an Indian chief without his headdress.
0 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
wilarrbie 8/7/2020 3:06:11 AM (No. 502242)
What if we're all being surreptitiously DNA'd when hospitalized, or perhaps upon death? That's valuable info someone would pay for, right? And who doesn't like to make money!!
0 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Aubreyesque 8/7/2020 3:19:42 AM (No. 502243)
As an adoptee, I'll tell you why DNA tests are so important: often...VERY often...it is the ONLY way we can access medical and genetic information about our heritage and biology, especially in those states where adult adoptees are still considered children by the state and are denied access to their own Original Birth Certificate. DNA tests are making the attempts of the State and adoption industr(ies) to restrict, even nullify the adoptees rights as a full-fledged American citizen to learn the truth of their story. DNA puts to lie the attempts to hide child trafficking among public and private organizations.
Having said that, I do agree that DNA tests should be given HIPPA status.
1 person likes this.
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A US Congress worth its salt would pass strict safeguards on personal information such as this, at least as tight as HIPPA, to include authorization of any "sharing," especially as privacy disclosures typically are highly nuanced, as they like to say.