It has been reported this week that the private equity company, Blackstone, has bought Ancenstry.com for almost $5B. This has raised quite a few questions about where they see its future value.
It is estimated that Ancestry.com holds more than 27 billion DNA records and has over 100 million family trees. This is a fantastic source for historians and individuals hoping to find out more about great uncle Albert’s dubious past. However, this information may be far more useful as input to medical research, as a foundation for further exploration of genomics, and a wide variety of scientific and social science issues. Unfortunately, defining a profitable business model supporting these directions has proved rather more difficult.
Given these challenges, others speculate that Blackstone’s interests lie elsewhere. With the surge of interest in applications driven by Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), this large set of personal data could itself be of great value. In combination with other widely available data sources, subsets of this DNA data could be used to train ML algorithms in all sorts of domains from entertainment and retail through to law enforcement. And such a big price tag will surely exert pressure to quickly recoup some of these costs by giving access to this data for applications never envisaged when individuals provided their DNA samples out of curiosity or as a form of infotainment. A danger that providers of data trusts and open data access have increasingly been warning about recently.
As one of the reports of this sale reminds us:
Ultimately, the multi-billion dollar trading of Ancestry between investment companies is another reminder that when you hand over your DNA, you never know who might eventually own it.
Thanks
Alan
Alan W. Brown a.w.brown@exeter.ac.uk
Professor in Digital Economy www.ExeterINDEX.org
Exeter Business School M: +44 (0)777 2454541
University of Exeter, UK skype: alanwbrown
www.exeter.ac.uk
twitter: @alanwbrown
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