Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites

Public genealogy websites, to which individuals upload family history, genealogy, and sometimes individual genetic data, have been used in an increasing number of public health, epidemiological, and genetic studies. Yet there is little awareness among researchers of the legal rules that govern the u...

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Autores principales: Contreras, Jorge L, Schultz, Kyle, Teerlink, Craig C, Maness, Tim, Meyer, Laurence J, Cannon-Albright, Lisa A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2020
Materias:
Original Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8249109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34221427
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsaa063
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author Contreras, Jorge L
Schultz, Kyle
Teerlink, Craig C
Maness, Tim
Meyer, Laurence J
Cannon-Albright, Lisa A
author_facet Contreras, Jorge L
Schultz, Kyle
Teerlink, Craig C
Maness, Tim
Meyer, Laurence J
Cannon-Albright, Lisa A
author_sort Contreras, Jorge L
collection PubMed
description Public genealogy websites, to which individuals upload family history, genealogy, and sometimes individual genetic data, have been used in an increasing number of public health, epidemiological, and genetic studies. Yet there is little awareness among researchers of the legal rules that govern the use of these online resources. We analyzed the online Terms of Use (TOU) applicable to 17 popular genealogy websites and found that none of them expressly permit scientific research, while at least 13 contain restrictions that may limit or prohibit scientific research using data obtained from those sites. In order to ensure that researchers who use genealogy and other data from these sites for public health and other scientific research purposes do not inadvertently breach applicable TOUs, we recommend that genealogy website operators consider revising their TOUs to permit this activity.
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spelling pubmed-82491092021-07-02 Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites Contreras, Jorge L Schultz, Kyle Teerlink, Craig C Maness, Tim Meyer, Laurence J Cannon-Albright, Lisa A J Law Biosci Original Article Public genealogy websites, to which individuals upload family history, genealogy, and sometimes individual genetic data, have been used in an increasing number of public health, epidemiological, and genetic studies. Yet there is little awareness among researchers of the legal rules that govern the use of these online resources. We analyzed the online Terms of Use (TOU) applicable to 17 popular genealogy websites and found that none of them expressly permit scientific research, while at least 13 contain restrictions that may limit or prohibit scientific research using data obtained from those sites. In order to ensure that researchers who use genealogy and other data from these sites for public health and other scientific research purposes do not inadvertently breach applicable TOUs, we recommend that genealogy website operators consider revising their TOUs to permit this activity. Oxford University Press 2020-11-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8249109/ /pubmed/34221427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsaa063 Text en © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Duke University School of Law, Harvard Law School, Oxford University Press, and Stanford Law School. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) ), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
spellingShingle Original Article
Contreras, Jorge L
Schultz, Kyle
Teerlink, Craig C
Maness, Tim
Meyer, Laurence J
Cannon-Albright, Lisa A
Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites
title Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites
title_full Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites
title_fullStr Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites
title_full_unstemmed Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites
title_short Legal terms of use and public genealogy websites
title_sort legal terms of use and public genealogy websites
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8249109/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34221427
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsaa063
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