
$49 Personal Genome at 23andme (incognito windows until you get the best price) - bsimpson
http://www.23andme.com/
======
benmanns
Run in your JavaScript console:

    
    
      document.cookie = 'optimizelyBuckets=' + escape('{"145285685":"145865258"}') + '; domain=.23andme.com'; document.location.reload(true);
    

The other values I found:

    
    
      69 -> escape('{"145285685":"145818631"}')
      99 -> escape('{"145285685":"145866265"}')
      149 -> escape('{"145285685":"145285686"}')
      299 -> escape('{"145285685":"145891045"}')
    

Edit: Actually, it looks like this no longer works. They may have noticed and
stopped the A/B test.

You can empty the cart and run

    
    
      window.$.ajax({url:'/special_offer/49NOV2012/?json=true'})
    

Then click add to cart and once in your cart it will be $49.

I'm going to have to start looking at more websites' Optimizely codes!

~~~
randomaccount5
This works:

<https://www.23andme.com/special_offer/49NOV2012/>

~~~
joshhart
Doesn't seem to work anymore. Had to break eventually I guess!

------
mooneater
Everyone is so fixated on the price.

What I want to know is, who they share the data with? Do the insurance
companies get our genome?

Come on people, there should be no more precious data to you, than the genome
of you and your family. Yet facebook users seem more concerned about their
social network privacy than HN members are about their genome privacy.

For insurance companies, this could be a total actuarial GOLDMINE and it would
probably even be worth them paying us for the data.

~~~
Karunamon
>What I want to know is, who they share the data with?

Did you read the privacy policy? Specifically:

[https://customercare.23andme.com/entries/21262376-how-is-
the...](https://customercare.23andme.com/entries/21262376-how-is-the-privacy-
of-participants-research-data-protected)

 _23andMe research may involve collaboration with external parties; however,
these external parties will only have access to pooled data stripped of
identifying information. 23andMe will never release your individual-level data
to any third party without asking for and receiving your explicit
authorization to do so. As part of our commitment to protecting the privacy of
our research participants, we have also obtained a Certificate of
Confidentiality from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This
certificate allows 23andMe to protect research participants’ data from
involuntary disclosure, including subpoenas from federal, state, and local
authorities._

>Do the insurance companies get our genome?

They're not allowed to discriminate based on genetic predisposition, and based
on the privacy policy, they're not going to get that info anyways.

~~~
mooneater
Thank you for finding that, Karunamon.

It is nice that their website includes reassuring language. But really, how
stable is that policy in the face of changing corporate owners, changing
political administration (romney?), changing supreme court justices, changing
geopolitics?

Genome data is of permanent importance. To be able to, even in 50 years, look
back at genome records of today, will still be very valuable (especially when
combined with genealogy records...).

Look at privacy trends, storage trends, and trends in govt accountability and
transparency. Make no mistake, once our sequences are in corporate databases,
there is no going back.

I look forward to user-driven cryptographic genome tools, which will allow us
to inspect our own genomes, while maintaining personal control over our entire
genome (ie., never having to hand the whole sequence over to a commercial or
govt entity).

~~~
Karunamon
>But really, how stable is that policy in the face of changing corporate
owners, changing political administration (romney?), changing supreme court
justices, changing geopolitics?

That's a valid point, but a few things reassure me. Firstly that
confidentiality cert from DHHS probably isn't going to be made useless by a
political entity any time soon (and I'd assume, though would need to research,
that such a cert would also apply to any buyers should 23AM get picked up by
someone else, and probably carries some requirements for them as well)

Even then, I doubt within the next 60 or so years left on my lifespan that
there will be any shenanigans in that area... and after I'm gone, they can do
whatever the hell they want with my sequence :)

I'd imagine that, given enough time and cost reduction, services like this
will become nationalized, where your genome is sequenced at birth for identity
and health purposes.

------
henryw
Verified to work. <http://i.imgur.com/6JqbL.png?1>

I had to keep closing and creating a new incognito window, not just new tabs.

It's cheaper to create a new account then to upgrade my old account for $249.

~~~
rwojo
Indeed it is cheaper to just get this at $49 than upgrade for $249. This is a
great way to upgrade to the V3 chip.

You get more SNPs if you have V2 and they add in V3, so I'll call them and see
if I can link it to my account.

Here are the SNP counts per chip version combo:

V2 only: 576,000 SNPs V3 only: 967,000 SNPs V2 + V3 (upgraded): 996,000 SNPs

------
thechut
Looks like maybe they are doing some A/B testing based on the way this site
responds. Regardless $49 instead of $299 (The first price I got in incognito)
is extremely significant.

~~~
tomkit
I think it's an A/B test as well. I saw $49, $149 and $299.

~~~
iceron
I have seen $69 and $99 as well.

~~~
thechut
Perhaps it is an A/B/C/D/E/F/G/H test...

------
_prototype_
This is ridiculous. While signing up, I got this message (I hate my state
sometimes...):

""" 23andMe is currently unable to process saliva samples collected in or
mailed from the state of New York. The New York Department of Health considers
our Personal Genome Service a test requiring a lab license and direct
physician involvement.

If you or the recipient of the Spit Kit intend to collect your sample and mail
it from outside the state of New York, please select the "Ship to New York"
button below. Upon receipt of your Spit Kit, you or the Spit Kit recipient
will be required to affirm under penalty of law that the sample for the Spit
Kit has not been collected in or mailed from the state of New York."""

~~~
mumboJumbo
If you want to skip this step you can enter a different state and it should
still get to you. (zip code > state code) It's worked for me at least.

------
Xcelerate
Great find. I suppose this is either a glitch or maybe they're doing some sort
of pricing experimentation. Either way, my father has been wanting to do this
for a while so I think $49 seals the deal!

~~~
khomenko
That would be some glitch :) But no, it's the latter.

~~~
iceron
Yep, running tests with Optimizely. Surely they have updated it by now.

------
ruswick
Alternatively, you can simply delete cookies and refresh. This is likely going
to be impractical if you don't have a cookie-management extension.

I use this:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/edit-this-
cookie/f...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/edit-this-
cookie/fngmhnnpilhplaeedifhccceomclgfbg)

------
smallegan
I thought it was interesting that I saw the full price flash on the screen
briefly before I saw my discounted price so I looked into the JS and sure
enough they are swapping out offer urls that look like this:
/special_offer/49NOV2012/?json=true

------
fingerprinter
I wonder what their threshold is for offering this as the permanent price? I
know I've never considered it before b/c of the price. Heck, I didn't consider
it when I got the $99 offer. But when I got $49, I ordered two.

~~~
a_bonobo
It used to be back when the $299 price was offered that you had to pay $99 for
a year of subscription to their annotation updates, not sure what's going on
now.

~~~
fingerprinter
Hmmm...not sure I'd care about the updates nearly as much as the initial
profile. Does anyone see value from the updates? What kind of information do
those provide?

~~~
a_bonobo
I just bought the kit for Australia - it was $49 + $74 shipping, the updates
are _not_ included - in fact, I think they stopped offering these.

The value used to be that you get the newest research linked to your SNPs,
i.e., if there's a new publication on one of your variations you would have
been notified.

------
brunorsini
Our bias-ridden mammalian brains can't really cope with these things in a
reasonable way. Although I've been considering this for $299 for quite some
time it feels like a total rip off right now

------
Dramatize
Wow, they are charging $115 shipping to Australia for two kits.

~~~
cynix
To be fair, the charge includes both shipping the kits to you and for you to
ship the kits back to them, so the price isn't as bad as it looks. But I do
agree with you that it can be lower.

~~~
khomenko
And customs duties. They are not trying to gouge you, AFAIK.

~~~
cynix
@Dramatize: but the US might charge them import duties when you send it back.
Not sure if the US has a duty-free allowance like we do.

------
heyadayo
Maybe I've been watching too much Dexter, but isn't this a law enforcement
agency's dream? Never again will they fail to get a match on DNA, just
subpoena 23andme and competitors.

Right?

~~~
AgentConundrum
Nope. Someone posted a link above[1] to what I assume is a 23andme FAQ
response, stating that they have a Certificate of Confidentiality from the
(US) government.

According to this NIH page on said certificates[2], it sounds like even if
they were served a subpoena for the information, 23andme could still tell them
to fuck off.

[1] [https://customercare.23andme.com/entries/21262376-how-is-
the...](https://customercare.23andme.com/entries/21262376-how-is-the-privacy-
of-participants-research-data-protected)

[2] <http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/coc/background.htm>

------
ivarv
Seems like the deal's over. I've now hit the homepage ~50 times with a new
incognito window each time and the price was always $299. Too bad, it would've
been nice.

~~~
bunkat
No, it's still working. I just bought two for $49.

------
socratees
Doesn't seem to work anymore. The price I get is $299.

~~~
a_bonobo
Keep deleting your cookies OR restart your Firefox in private mode, I had to
restart about 7 times until I got the $49 offer.

------
sarp
Thank you so much for this! I wanted to try it out for a long time, but was
waiting for a discount. It was a no brainer at $49 :)

------
endianswap
I've always wanted to do this, but $300 each is too much for my wife and I to
both get it done; saw $99 each and bought two.

------
rodneyfool
Has anyone done this? If so, was it worth it?

~~~
rdl
I did 23andme a year or two ago. I found out I have a really boring genome. No
real diseases or unexpected ancestry (I guess I was secretly hoping I was
adopted from Russian/Jewish royalty or martians or something?).

It's certainly worth $49 to me to know this (I think I paid $99 under a FNF
deal a while ago; I know one of the founders, who is awesome and a great
entrepreneur).

~~~
ccarter84
So you're saying they won't sell us down the river? I'm sold

~~~
rdl
Yeah, they're pretty decent people. I'm sure if the government went to them
with a warrant or something, they'd fully comply, but they genuinely care
about privacy and customers, and would be unlikely to do anything evil.
They're also rich enough that I doubt they'd be forced into a sale to some
crappy entity who would then abuse things, and their privacy policy is decent
enough.

The only real risk I see is if your account is compromised somehow, but at
least for me, there's nothing so sensitive in my account that I'd care.

------
kanzure
As far as I can tell, this is just their usual SNP array product. Wake me up
when they offer $49 for 30x coverage.

~~~
a_bonobo
They offer a full exome sequencing for $999 in a pilot right now, so for a
full genome 30x sequencing for 50 bucks you might have to sleep a decade or so

~~~
kanzure
Nah, I think it will be less than 10 years. But it is very weird to call their
SNP product a "personal genome". This whole thread is full of crazy. :/

Edit: ftp://ftp.1000genomes.ebi.ac.uk/vol1/ftp/ <\-- gimme this for $49

~~~
a_bonobo
Don't know if you're going to see this, but you might be interested:

[http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2012/11/29/dna-
dt...](http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2012/11/29/dna-dtc-the-
return-of-direct-to-consumer-whole-genome-sequencing/)

>Whole exomes ($695 at 80x coverage) and genomes ($5,495 at 30x coverage) are
both listed as available products.

------
Karunamon
I've been wanting to do this for ages and got the $49 on the second try. Much
thanks to the poster for this!

------
geekam
Maryland customers not allowed.

~~~
ianhawes
Yeah, just noticed this when I saw the reasonable $49 price. Really sucks.

------
jeffchuber
Thank you so much! Ordered!

------
geekam
I don't see 49. It says 299 for me. In incognito window it is 99.

~~~
thechut
New incognitos, not refresh, not new tab

~~~
SubFuze
Not only new incognito windows, but you have to close all incognito windows
you have open before opening a new one.

------
camz
i just bought 3 for me whole family lol for $49 dollars each. i was provided
$69, $99, $199 and $299 multiple times before they gave me $49 dollars.

------
ronyeh
I've seen $49, $69, $99, and $299. ABCD price testing!

------
batsrcool
Is this still working? All I see is $299

------
hornbaker
Just got 3 tests for $49 each. Thanks!

------
chatmasta
How much is it usually?

~~~
benigeri
300$

~~~
verma7
I ordered one for $300 a couple of weeks ago :(

~~~
eclipticplane
Still worth it at $300!

------
hdlnd
Just picked mine up for $49

------
mdfrancois
I think this could be a silent Cyber Monday sale. I saw $49/$69/$99/$199/$299.

Got mine for $49. Note once you get $49, you can order multiple kits at that
same price point.

