Millions paid to give away their most personal data. At least in return they found out more about their earwax

Information is the most valuable resource on Earth. We shed data from everything that we do, and megalithic corporations hoover it up. With that, they know us better than we know ourselves, and the information we readily give up is used to upsell to us, and manipulate our political and personal views. We are users of social media, but in reality we are the product. Google’s mission was never simply to provide a search engine; it was to curate the world’s information. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the commercial genetic testing company 23andMe was cofounded by Anne Wojcicki, once the wife of one of the Google creators; 23andMe’s mission was to curate the single richest dataset in the known universe, the one you carry around in your cells: your genome.

23andMe provided information purporting to be about your personal health and ancestry. All you had to do was spit in a tube and give them some money, and in return you’d get a very glossy map of your genetic genealogy, and some info on the probability that you like the taste of coriander, or your skin flushes when you’re drunk, or whether you have sticky or wet earwax, or your eye colour – things you might have already known, if you have ever looked in a mirror, or stuck your finger in your ear. If you look carefully, they did give solid info on the science underlying the results, but who reads the small print?

Dr Adam Rutherford is a lecturer in genetics at UCL and the author of How to Argue With a Racist