Updating TOS and Privacy Statement Regarding Law Enforcement Matching Preferences

[Tenn4ever]

Great news from Gedmatch. At least they are taking the ethical high road as opposed to Family Tree who took the low sleazy road. At Gedmatch Law Enforcement matching 'opt-out' will be the default. A person will need to consciously make the choice to opt - in for that to be affective. If someone wants their data used in this way then I say go for it and hopefully you can help find a criminal .

[Frederator]

Unfortunately, I think it's just too late. The company may tell you differently, but how could you ever believe them? The president of this company flagrantly broke their contract with the customers and treated our data like it was his personal property. As soon as I found out about this myself, I made it clear what they had to do to restore credibility, and what did they do? Delete the forum comment and then months later come out with this deceptive 'opt -out' campaign. They're not fooling anybody, but it seems as if they just don't care what their customers think. It's most likely just too late to protect our data or save this company.

[penguin]

I never recieved this email - even though i receive all sorts of emails from them. I'm actually quite distressed by this. I will go to my account and opt out now- but the question remains: Does anyone know if law enforcement agencies have already copied all the data onto their servers? That would make opting out just for show, as it will essentially be too late.

How should i think about not having received this email from ftdna when i get it seems like i am always getting stuff from them? -I get sales prices, contest, reports of people leaving projects, GAP info and so on.

[Frederator]

After much thought and analysis my opinion is that the only ethical thing for Family Tree to do is to make law enforcement matching 'opt out' by default. Those who want 'opt in' matching for law enforcement should have to take the initiative to 'opt in'.

Aboslutely. At the bare minimum. Anything else would just look like a cheap ploy to imply some type of consent where none was given or even asked for.

[Tenn4ever]

After much thought and analysis my opinion is that the only ethical thing for Family Tree to do is to make law enforcement matching 'opt out' by default. Those who want 'opt in' matching for law enforcement should have to take the initiative to 'opt in'.

[KATM]

Not sure what people are referring to when they say links do not work in this email from FTDNA.
They work for me. (Even when I click on the links within the ones dna posted in post 3 above)
If they don't for you it is probably a setting in your email program or web browser that is preventing the live links to open.
Right click link in email and copy Link Location, Paste it into your browser address bar
Does it direct you to webpage, if so it could be due to settings on your end.

Search internet "Live link in (your email program) will not open in (your browser)"

For me, the link in your first post did not work on March 12, before the content was added. It works fine now. I did not have any problems with the links in the email.

[dna]

Not sure what people are referring to when they say links do not work in this email from FTDNA.
They work for me. (Even when I click on the links within the ones dna posted in post 3 above) [----]

They were not working at the time I had posted. And I have rechecked some hours later after posting.

Thank for checking and not blindly making assumptions

But most importantly, I am glad to hear that the person responsible at FTDNA made corrections. I am imaging that some people were surprised, since one of the links appears to have the date of the 19th of March embedded in it.


Mr. W.

[prairielad]

Not sure what people are referring to when they say links do not work in this email from FTDNA.
They work for me. (Even when I click on the links within the ones dna posted in post 3 above)
If they don't for you it is probably a setting in your email program or web browser that is preventing the live links to open.
Right click link in email and copy Link Location, Paste it into your browser address bar
Does it direct you to webpage, if so it could be due to settings on your end.

Search internet "Live link in (your email program) will not open in (your browser)"

[Frederator]

How do you know that? Did you program that feature? Are you even an employee of the company? Of course you aren't.

Why couldn't the company even be bothered to give their customers working links? Why is there so much unnecessary mystery surrounding what this slide bar actually accomplishes? Are you trying to tell me that it is simply too much effort to have a dynamic status field explicitly saying either 'police sharing on' or 'police sharing off'?

Why is the default option to share with police? Our accounts are not the property of FTDNA. They don't have the right to unilaterally make that choice. It's also in direct violation of the original customer contracts.

When your company's existence is being threatened by a major ethical scandal, you need to communicate with clarity, urgency, and sincerity. What FTDNA has done instead is to lazily phone in a response--almost literally. You're not even an employee.

This is not acceptable by any means. Sloppy, lazy and insincere.

[Tenn4ever]

The link may not work. I didn't try it but after receiving the message from Family Tree I immediately signed on to each of my kits (13) and changed the 'privacy' setting to opt out of law enforcement matching. Yes, the opt in/opt out bar does work. If you are opt in the bar is blue. If you have opted out the bar is gray.

[Frederator]

People, you have to start getting smart. Unilaterally breaking your service contract is NOT made up for by the company later sending you months after the fact a broken link to a default setting that nobody knows actually works.

[Frederator]

Just another THREE examples of how dishonest FTDNA are being about this.

1. As the other posters above noted, the links to instructions for the opt-out procedure don't work. The company are counting on you being satisfied with the empty ILLUSION of choice alone. This is like the phony literacy tests Jim Crow states would put as a condition for voting. Technically you'd only have to be able to write some simple sentence like 'the dog chased the cat', but then they'd demand that you do it with crayon on a piece of wax paper.

2. Why would the default position be to INCLUDE people in the police force sharing program? The company's message makes it clear that they've defaulted us to OPT IN. Why? This is inconsistent with initial terms of service which Greenspan unilaterally broke by engaging in this chicanery in the first place.

3. Here's a picture of the opt in/opt out menu. The language next to the slider interface for police sharing is identical to both options--suggesting that you will be OPTED IN no matter which selection you make. Which is it? How would we know for sure?

FTDNA has no shame whatsoever about tricking its customers. First it broke the original terms of service by unilaterally sharing our data with the police. Then it insulted us by sending us a retroactive terms of service policy statement that we had absolutely no input about before the fact, very likely voiding the arbitration clause of its customer contracts. Just to preserve the illusion that actual consent was involved. Now it piles on by offering us the false choice of altering some extremely ambiguous sharing settings through links that don't even work.

How is anyone supposed to take this half-#2@@ed garbage seriously? Even if you actually altered your sharing settings, would it make any difference? There was a matter of months between Greenspan's unilateral actions and this broken message. Plenty of time for the police to harvest LOTS of data.


Which is it.png

[Tenn4ever]

Can somebody please explain to me the point in updating these terms of service after the fact? There's nothing customers can do about it once they've mailed their samples to to the company. A company representative just sent me a message to let me know that they don't care what we think and that there's no point in even discussing it any longer.

FTDNA has pretty much made it clear that they're going to do whatever they want with our DNA regardless of our opinions or the promises they made to close the sale. Frankly, it just comes as an unnecessary insult for them to pretend they even care at this stage of the game.

This should serve as a warning to anyone tempted to purchase from FTDNA in the future, but for people who already sent their DNA in, it's too late.

I don't understand your problem? Just go to your privacy settings and opt out of Law Enforcement Matching.

[Frederator]

"The customer is always right--until their check clears. Then all bets are off."

[Frederator]

Can somebody please explain to me the point in updating these terms of service after the fact? There's nothing customers can do about it once they've mailed their samples to to the company. A company representative just sent me a message to let me know that they don't care what we think and that there's no point in even discussing it any longer.

FTDNA has pretty much made it clear that they're going to do whatever they want with our DNA regardless of our opinions or the promises they made to close the sale. Frankly, it just comes as an unnecessary insult for them to pretend they even care at this stage of the game.

This should serve as a warning to anyone tempted to purchase from FTDNA in the future, but for people who already sent their DNA in, it's too late.