Ancestry.com - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Ancestry.com is Lower Risk.

Ancestry.com is Lower Risk. The company does not yield to political activism in shaping corporate governance, preventing initiatives that potentially alienate consumers, divide employees, and harm shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. Overall, Ancestry.com does not embrace corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues. This approach protects free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Lower Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Lower Risk
Employment Protection	High Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	Lower Risk
Political Actions	Lower Risk

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Ancestry.com has not publicly canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Ancestry.com does not appear to discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Ancestry.com appears to prioritize diversity over merit in its business structure through the establishment of gender and racial targets for its hiring and leadership. Ancestry.com is seeking “more than 45% of Ancestry’s Directors and above are women or racially diverse and to have more than 45% of product, engineering, and science roles are held by women or racially diverse individuals” by 2025 (1). The company does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (2)(3).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Ancestry.com’s CEO Deborah Liu signed the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge, which includes a commitment to promote DEI through bias education training in the workplace, strategize on DEI programs/initiatives with other signatories, and engage boards of directors when developing and evaluating DEI strategies (1)(2)(3)(4). Ancestry.com integrates DEI into its products, “We’ve separated sex from gender as an option in AncestryDNA, allowing people to decide how they represent themselves in the Ancestry ecosystem. We continue to look for ways to make this more inclusive across our product” (5).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Ancestry.com has not used corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (1).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Ancestry.com does not operate a PAC at this time and has not lobbied for ideological purposes (1)(2)(3).