Ancestry authorizes sharing of user information with third-party vendors for fraud prevention, payment processing, advertising, and analytics, and permits third-party advertising companies to collect user activity data from Ancestry's services for targeted advertising purposes.
This analysis describes what Ancestry's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision authorizes two distinct data flows: sharing with service providers operating under contract and allowing third-party advertising companies to independently collect user activity data. The latter may constitute 'sharing' of personal information under the CPRA, triggering opt-out rights for California residents, and may implicate cookie consent requirements under GDPR for EU users.
The updated Privacy Statement no longer displays a dedicated 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' link in the footer, which was previously accessible to California residents under CCPA requirements. This link allowed users to exercise data-sharing opt-out rights. The footer now lists 'Consumer Health Privacy' as a separate item but does not explicitly direct users to their CCPA controls. California residents may need to locate their opt-out rights through alternative navigation paths on the Ancestry site.
View change record →The updated privacy policy removes the 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' link from the footer navigation. This link previously provided direct access to Ancestry's data-sharing opt-out mechanism, which is a required disclosure under California's CCPA. While the removal does not eliminate the opt-out right itself, it may make the opt-out control less easily discoverable from the privacy policy page. Affected users may need to locate the opt-out mechanism through alternate navigation or search methods.
View change record →The updated Privacy Statement clarifies what uses of Ancestry services are permitted and prohibited, establishes that photo face-grouping in your gallery requires your express consent, and introduces SMS messaging as a communication channel for future opt-in communications. The statement now covers Ancestry, AncestryDNA, and Related Brands under a unified framework while noting that other services operated by the company use separate privacy statements. The removal of 'uploaded DNA data' from the account creation section reflects a narrowing of that specific provision's scope, though genetic information processing remains described elsewhere in the policy. You can review the full updated statement to understand how your personal information will be processed and manage your communication preferences when SMS opt-ins become available.
View change record →This expands data sharing scope to explicitly include advertising and analytics partners and allows third-party ad companies direct collection of activity data, significantly broadening monetization of user information.
View full change record →Under this clause, user activity data including browsing behavior on Ancestry's services may be accessed by third-party advertising companies for targeted advertising. California residents can opt out of this sharing through the 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' mechanism described in the policy.
How other platforms handle this
The types of third parties your information may be disclosed to include: our resellers and other sales and advertising partners, retailers, advertisers, ad agencies, advertising networks and platforms, information service providers, fraud monitoring and prevention providers, and publishers.
In some cases, the third parties mentioned in this section may maintain the information they collect in personally identifiable form.
Protect us, our business, our users, and others, for example to enforce our terms of service, prevent spam or other unwanted communications, and investigate or protect against fraud
"We may share your information with third-party vendors and service providers that support our business, such as fraud prevention, payment processing, advertising, analytics, and other services. We may also allow third-party advertising companies to collect information about your activity on our Services for the purposes of sending you targeted advertising.Excerpt from Ancestry's Privacy Statement
REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: Third-party advertising data collection from Ancestry's platform may constitute 'sharing' of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising under the CPRA, subject to opt-out rights enforced by the California Privacy Protection Agency and California …
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This provision authorizes two distinct data flows: sharing with service providers operating under contract and allowing third-party advertising companies to independently collect user activity data. The latter may constitute 'sharing' of personal information under the CPRA, triggering opt-out rights for California residents, and may implicate cookie consent requirements under GDPR for EU users.
Under this clause, user activity data including browsing behavior on Ancestry's services may be accessed by third-party advertising companies for targeted advertising. California residents can opt out of this sharing through the 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' mechanism described in the policy.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 288 platforms. See the full comparison.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Ancestry.