There are obvious loopholes to the statement “no single individual can be identified”.
https://www.gsk.com/media/5349/annual-report-2018.pdf
> 23andMe in which the Group holds 14.5%.
You can also find a list of subsidiaries of GSK in there and you will note that 23andMe is not listed among them.
If a publicly traded-company has more than 5% of outstanding shares owned by a single entity, they have to file an SEC Form 13D. This is a typical cut-off to indicate an activist investor [2]. Far less than the 14.5% GSK owns. Without knowing who owns the other 85.5% of 23andMe (or visibility into their board and voting structure), we have no idea who controls the company.
You would need to spend about $44 billion to own 5%, or 24.8 million shares, of Amazon. I'm still not clear on how GSK's purchase of 14.5% of 23andMe along with the exclusive agreement that came with it is the same as buying a single share of Amazon stock.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/24/glaxosmithkline-23andme-team...
Buying 14.5% of a company does not come with an automatic collaboration agreement nor would a collaboration agreement come with 14.5% of a company's stock unless there is specific terms for that in some contract which establishes both. And there very well may have been - but both a collaboration agreement and 14.5% ownership can exists without such a contract.
> I'm still not clear on how GSK's purchase of 14.5% of 23andMe along with the exclusive agreement that came with it is the same as buying a single share of Amazon stock.
The argument that was made and that I was responding to was that GSK is 23andMe's parent firm and therefore not legally a 3rd party ... and I'm not sure how I much clearer I can say a shareholder is a shareholder.
If you want to argue that the exclusive collaboration agreement (which is not the same thing as 14.5% ownership) somehow defeats 23andMe's privacy policy then please, argue for it. Maybe it does - but you have not done anything more than allude to it doing so.
> You would need to spend about $44 billion to own 5%, or 24.8 million shares, of Amazon.
And spending that much will not entitle me to an exclusive collaboration agreement with Amazon nor will it make me somehow not a 3rd party of Amazon and therefore allow Amazon to give me all their client data without violating any privacy policies as the person I was responding to claimed.
> Without knowing who owns the other 85.5% of 23andMe (or visibility into their board and voting structure), we have no idea who controls the company.
We don't - but board members and owners are not the same as parent companies and I don't see how that somehow defeats their privacy policy either but if you think it can please clarify.
The point is that GSK wouldn't have invested $300 million without the exclusive collaboration agreement. That is why it's different than buying a publicly traded stock. GSK is not just a random shareholder, they are a significant owner (may even have board seats) with an exclusive collaboration agreement. You are splitting those things up to make your argument, but they are linked together.
> A 23andMe spokesperson told TIME that data privacy is a “top priority” for the company, emphasizing that customer data isn’t used in research without consent, and that GlaxoSmithKline will only receive “summary statistics from analyses 23andMe conducts so that no single individual can be identified.”
Also, if I buy some shares in Amazon I don't get have all their client data.