FTC Sues Hims & Hers Over Health Data Sharing With Meta and Snap, Stock Drops 15%

Government says the privacy promises were fake

The FTC filed suit against Hims & Hers on Wednesday, July 29, in federal court in the Northern District of California. Utah and Los Angeles County joined as co-plaintiffs.

The complaint alleges the telehealth company shared customers' sensitive health information, including conditions like erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation and hair loss, with advertising platforms including Meta and Snap. This happened despite Hims & Hers telling users its service was "100% online, private and secure," according to the complaint as reported by Forbes.

The FTC says the company used tracking technology "offered by Meta" embedded on its website to build detailed advertising audiences, according to CBS News. "Hims was only able to create audiences with such specificity because it flouted the promises it made to its users about treating their medical conditions 'privately,'" the FTC said in its complaint.

Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, didn't mince words. "The FTC's complaint lays out a troubling scenario, consumers unknowingly locked into recurring subscriptions and the disclosure to third parties of consumers' most private health information without their consent," he said in a statement carried by the FTC and CBS News. "The FTC will not hesitate to act on behalf of consumers deprived of their ability to choose which products they want and whether to keep their most sensitive health information private."

The billing allegations are ugly if true

This isn't just a data-sharing case. The FTC alleges Hims & Hers charged people for prescriptions before they'd even spoken to a healthcare provider, in some cases immediately after an intake form was submitted.

Forbes cited specific complaints from the lawsuit: one customer said they were charged $897 before ever talking to a medical professional. Another said they were billed $147 for a three-month Lexapro supply after simply indicating on an intake form they were "open to" medication.

The company advertised "free" consultations and displayed "Pay $0 today" on intake forms, then allegedly enrolled people in recurring subscriptions the moment a provider wrote a script, according to the complaint reported by Forbes. Regulators also allege refill charges were processed 10 days earlier than advertised schedules would suggest, while customers had to cancel two days before that early date, a setup that made missing the cancellation window easy.

Cancellation itself, the FTC alleges, was buried behind an "Add/remove items from order" button that never actually said "cancel." If accurate, that's a design choice, not an accident.

A three-year investigation, not a surprise attack

This lawsuit didn't come out of nowhere. CNBC reported the FTC's investigation dates back to October 2023, and the agency formally communicated its findings to Hims & Hers in April 2026, kicking off settlement talks.

In May, the company disclosed a $15 million probable-loss accrual tied to the matter and warned the final cost could run higher, according to CNBC. Hims & Hers reportedly made a settlement offer without admitting wrongdoing. Wednesday's lawsuit means those talks broke down and the FTC decided to escalate instead of settle.

This is the product of nearly three years of investigation that ended without a deal both sides could live with.

Hims & Hers pushes back hard

The company didn't stay quiet. In a post on X, Hims & Hers called the allegations "baseless" and accused the FTC of political theater: "This is not enforcement grounded in consumer protection; it is an effort to generate headlines at our expense."

The company also told CBS News its customers "have the information they need to make informed decisions about their care," and that its privacy policy "makes clear that they may choose how their data is used, and that information patients share with their healthcare providers is used only in providing care." CNBC reported the company said the lawsuit "disregards substantial evidence" from the investigation and "contorts the law to try to manufacture claims."

Hims & Hers is disputing not just the conclusions but the FTC's characterization of what its privacy policy actually promised users. No court has ruled on any of this yet. These are allegations in a complaint, not proven facts.

Market reaction and what's unresolved

Shares fell hard Wednesday. CBS News put the drop at nearly 15%, Forbes said more than 11%, and CNBC reported roughly 10%. The exact percentage varies slightly by report and by when in the trading session it was measured, but the direction is unambiguous: investors didn't like the news.

Hims & Hers serves roughly 2.6 million subscribers across weight-loss, hair-loss and other treatment categories, according to Forbes, meaning any ruling on data practices or billing design could reshape how the company's entire subscription model operates.

The case now heads to federal court in California with no trial date yet reported. The central legal question is whether Hims & Hers' privacy policy and billing disclosures were merely imperfect or were, as the FTC alleges, deceptive under the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act.