BETTERHELP AGREED TO REFUND $7.8 MILLION TO IMPACTED CUSTOMERS
The United States Federal Trade Commission recently announced that BETTERHELP – a mental health platform that provides online counseling services – agreed to pay $7.8 million fine, and entered into an order which prohibits it “from sharing consumers’ health data for advertising.”
The company is alleged to have supplied customer data such as “email addresses, IP addresses, and health questionnaire information to Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest,” without appropriate consent.
In addition to providing partial refunds to impacted consumers, the company must “obtain affirmative express consent before disclosing personal information to certain third parties for any purpose,” is now required to implement “a comprehensive privacy program that includes strong safeguards to protect consumer data,” any third parties will be required to “delete the consumer health and other personal data that BetterHelp shared with them,” and, data retention will be subject to a delineated schedule which will impact “how long it can retain personal and health information.”
Bet Betterhelp wished it got a better deal.
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