Online counseling service BetterHelp has been accused of selling user data to Facebook and Snapchat by the FTC. The online counseling service has agreed to pay a fine to settle the charges after the FTC alleged the company sold data about its users to Mark Zuckerberg and the Masters of the Universe after telling them it wouldn’t.
The Verge reports that BetterHelp, a popular online counseling service, has agreed to pay $7.8 million to settle claims made by the FTC that it improperly shared customers’ private information with Facebook and Snapchat despite having made a commitment not to do so. This agreement represents a significant advancement in the field of online mental health, where issues with data security and privacy have long been raised.
Mark Zuckerberg Meta Selfie (Facebook)
The FTC’s proposed order, which was released on Thursday, would prohibit the same conduct moving forward and oblige BetterHelp to alter its data handling practices. The regulator asserts that the company “promised consumers that it would not use or disclose their personal health data except for limited purposes” during the sign-up process for its service. However, the FTC claims that the business “used and disclosed consumers’ email addresses, IP addresses, and health questionnaire information to Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest for advertising purposes.”
After a February 2020 article from Jezebel exposed some of its practices, the FTC asserts that BetterHelp provided customer service representatives with false scripts to try and reassure users that it wasn’t sharing personally identifiable or personal health information. Despite the fact that “no government agency or other third party reviewed [BetterHelpinformation]’s practices for compliance with HIPAA, let alone determined that the practices met the requirements of HIPAA,” the complaint from the commission accuses the company of misleading customers by displaying a HIPAA seal on its website.
“BetterHelp betrayed consumers’ most personal health information for profit,” said Samuel Levine, FTC bureau of consumer protection director, according to the agency’s press release. The commission says that BetterHelp “used consumers’ email addresses and the fact that they had previously been in therapy to instruct Facebook to identify similar consumers and target them with advertisements,” helping it bring in “tens of thousands of new paying users and millions of dollars in revenue.”
BetterHelp has released a statement calling its practices “industry-standard” but says: “we understand the FTC’s desire to set new precedents around consumer marketing, and we are happy to settle this matter with the agency.” It also clarifies that it’s never shared information like “members’ names or clinical data from therapy sessions” with “advertisers, publishers, social media platforms, or any other similar third parties.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan