The company added that the settlement with the agency focused on issues that GoodRx resolved three years ago, before the F.T.C. GoodRx, based in Santa Monica, Calif., said in a statement that user privacy was one of its most important priorities. is serving notice that it will use all of its legal authority to protect American consumers’ sensitive data from misuse and illegal exploitation.” “Digital health companies and mobile apps should not cash in on consumers’ extremely sensitive and personally identifiable health information,” Samuel Levine, director of the F.T.C.’s bureau of consumer protection, said in a statement. consent order is seeking to prohibit a company from sharing users’ health data for advertising purposes. This is also the first time that a proposed F.T.C. That rule requires health apps and connected devices that collect or use personal health information, like an individual’s heart rate or menstruation history, to notify users of breaches like cyberattacks or the unauthorized sharing of their health data. This is the first time that the agency has brought an enforcement action using its Health Breach Notification Rule. is employing new legal approaches and remedies in the GoodRx case as part of its effort to bolster safeguards for the personal information collected by health apps, trackers and sites. To settle the case, the company also agreed to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty for violating the health breach notification rule. If a judge approves the proposed federal settlement order, GoodRx will be permanently barred from sharing users’ health information for advertising purposes. Those data disclosures, regulators said, flouted public promises the company had made to “ never provide advertisers any information that reveals a personal health condition.” GoodRx then used the personal information to target users with ads for medications on Facebook and Instagram, the complaint said, “all of which was visible to Facebook.” GoodRx also targeted users who had looked up information on sexually transmitted diseases on HeyDoctor, the company’s telemedicine service, with ads for HeyDoctor’s S.T.D. boom.įrom 2017 to 2020, GoodRx uploaded the contact information of users who had bought certain medications, like birth control or erectile dysfunction pills, to Facebook so that the drug discount app could identify its users’ social media profiles, the F.T.C. But the company finds itself struggling not to be left out of the A.I. Meta: The owner of Facebook has long had technology to rival chatbots like ChatGPT.Lyft: The ride-hailing company, long in Uber’s shadow, has been thrust into the spotlight as its financial woes have set off speculation over whether it could be an acquisition target. YouTube: Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s chief executive and one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley, is stepping down from her longtime role leading the internet’s most popular video service.Bing: Microsoft’s new version of its search engine, which is powered by artificial intelligence, has been offering an array of inaccurate and at times bizarre responses to some users.But unlike a person’s blood test results and other patient information collected by doctors and hospitals - which are protected by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA - personal health details that tens of millions of consumers enter into apps or search for online, like the names of drugs or diseases, are specifically covered by few legal protections. Over the last two decades, start-ups and giant tech companies have introduced a range of fitness devices, smartwatches and fertility apps. The F.T.C.’s case against GoodRx could upend widespread user-profiling and ad-targeting practices in the multibillion-dollar digital health industry, and it puts companies on notice that regulators intend to curb the nearly unfettered trade in consumers’ health details. And it underscores the F.T.C.’s intensifying efforts to push digital health services to beef up their user privacy and security protections. The crackdown on GoodRx comes at a moment of heightened concern over the leaking of sensitive health information, particularly in states that have banned or severely limited abortions.
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