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Enforcement · Settlement / consent order

FTC fines BetterHelp $7.8M for sharing mental-health data with advertisers

FTC Act Section 5 Federal Adtech & trackingHealth data

In March 2023, the FTC announced a proposed order requiring online counseling service BetterHelp to pay $7.8 million to consumers, after alleging the company shared sensitive mental-health information, including email addresses and health-questionnaire answers, with Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest for advertising, despite repeatedly promising users that data would stay private. The FTC said BetterHelp used consumers' email addresses to help Facebook match them to existing accounts and target them with ads, did not get consent before disclosing the data, and had publicly denied sharing such data in 2020. The order bans BetterHelp from sharing health data for advertising, requires affirmative consent for other disclosures, and directs third parties to delete the data they already received. Refunds cover consumers who paid for the service between August 2017 and December 2020.

Why it matters A privacy promise about sensitive data is independently enforceable. Breaking a stated commitment ("this stays between you and your therapist") is a violation on its own, before you even get to whether the sharing itself was disclosed.
Read the primary source
Federal Trade Commission
Open source

Published by Editorial on Sep 23, 2026. Not independently re-checked against the primary source — read it via the link above.

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Summaries are DataGrail’s wording, not statutory text; amounts and outcomes come from the linked primary source.

This summary is DataGrail's own plain-language account, written for privacy practitioners. It is not legal advice. For the authoritative text, follow the primary-source link above.