But as far as I can tell, there are only 3 viable services for that post testing data analysis:
- FTDNA
- YFull
- The Big Tree (for R1b-P312+ men only)
Where does that data come from? It comes from public data sources, including FTDNA project results pages. Why do we do this? Because no one else was doing it period, and especially not for our area of interest, R1b-DF104+ men. We tried to set up a project at FTDNA and were denied twice on the flimsiest of made-up excuses due to biases from certain project admins at FTDNA who are company pets and have a fair amount of influence as a result. This tacit approval of ethnic bias and censorship is more than a little ironically hypocritical considering the origins of the company's founders.
Let me refer you to an older article by Roberta Estes on what she thinks about data mining / scraping, which is very negative in summary. But her view is slightly biased because she is an openly admitted affiliate of (shill for) FTDNA, among others.
It was a conscious decision on the part of the DCG not to become an affiliate of any company in order to maintain complete freedom and independence. A revenue stream from a corporation always comes with strings, even if they are on a subconscious level. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with choosing to become a corporate affiliate, but it has consequences.Disclosure
I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.
Thank you so much.
[etc.]
BTW, please note, as pointed out in the referenced article, YOUR data is copyrighted by FTDNA if you used their service. How do you feel about that?
So why does the DCG feel what it is doing to gather data is copacetic? Because of the USA legal doctrine of Fair Use:
What the DCG is doing meets all 4 of those criteria. We especially do not impact any company's revenue as we are a free volunteer group that is doing data interpretation not being offered anywhere else and done for the betterment of the genetic genealogy community. There is so much data available scattered across so many places that it is difficult for people to find it all, much less consolidate it. And despite efforts to do so, FTDNA made it impossible to consolidate and disseminate that data inside their project structure for reasons mentioned above.U.S. fair use factors
Examples of fair use in United States copyright law include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. Fair use provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor test.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- the nature of the copyrighted work;
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
To be clear, any donations the DCG receives or has received are strictly for the operation of the DCG website; and those donations are voluntary. What we do is a labor of love and is free to use for as long as we can operate. And that especially means continued access to public data. Time will tell if that data remains public or gets locked behind fee based corporate walls. You can vote on this with your hard earned money. Corporations exist to serve you, not the other way round.
