These Companies Want You to Sell Your DNA on the Internet

“They’re taking new science, greed, consumer ignorance, and bitcoin mythology to take advantage of people,” said Petter Pitts, the president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a former FDA associate commissioner. “It’s very similar to people who say ‘Come to Mexico for a cancer cure.’”

In addition to all the usual risks of sharing your genetic information, he said, these marketplaces add a new concern.

“If your genetic data is valuable, should you have the opportunity to share in the profit? Absolutely yes,” Pitts said. “But all individual genetic makeup is not equally valuable from a monetary perspective. There’s the danger of people being confused as to what they have and being taken advantage of.”