When 23andMe started selling the kits that included genealogy matching results, there was no subscription fee. You paid once and that was it. About 18 months ago, they started selling an "upgrade" and along with that upgrade came a monthly fee to continue receiving updates. At that time, they stated that if you stopped paying the fee after a year's commitment, you would not receive any new health updates nor matches, but the ones you had at the time you stopped paying would remain.
Dick Eastman covers this here:
Now, they have reversed their position and before Christmas announced that they will no longer honor their committment. If you allow your monthly subscription to lapse, which has increased from $5 per month to $9 per month, you will no longer have access to your results at all. The genetic genealogy community has banded together to voice our displeasure with their intended failure to honor their initial commitment by creating a petition that we are signing.
The petition can be found at:
I encourage everyone to sign this petition. I have.
I am also voting with my money and I no longer encourage people to test at 23andMe. Family Tree DNA provides this same test for genealogists, without the health info obviously, and there is no subscription fee on top of the initial test price of $99. $9 per month is $108 per year and it has risen from $60 per year, a price jump of $56% in one fell swoop.
I feel that 23andMe is not being a good corporate citizen by changing their policies and then trying to pretend they were always that way.
Roberta Estes
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