FTC Sues Hims & Hers Over Deception, Privacy
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- FTC sued Hims & Hers on Wednesday alongside Utah and California, alleging deceptive practices in how the telehealth company sells clinical care and medications.
- Hims allegedly misled consumers about sharing sensitive health information with third parties including Meta and Snap, the lawsuit claims.
- Hims allegedly failed to disclose that completing a medical history form enrolls users in a continuously renewing subscription that bills them for medication.
- The suit claims patients are given "virtually no opportunity to review the provider's recommended treatment, much less consent to it," and that canceling subscriptions is made difficult.
- Hims fired back on X, calling the suit an effort to "generate headlines at our expense" and vowing to "vigorously defend" against what it called "baseless claims."
- The action continues a pattern of FTC enforcement targeting digital health companies' business practices and use of consumer health data.
Why it matters: The lawsuit targets a high-profile telehealth company whose model depends on easy online sign-ups, and the data-sharing allegations reach directly into health information flowing to Meta and Snap — a privacy dimension that goes well beyond the consumer-subscription complaints that tend to dominate telehealth coverage.
