Did BetterHelp Share Your Data? The Real Problem With Digital Therapy Privacy
Sunday, May 3, 2026. This is for all therapists in private practice, and in public mental health.
BetterHelp did not “sell” therapy notes—but the FTC found it shared sensitive user data with advertisers, raising serious questions about privacy in digital therapy.
There is a particular tone companies use when they want you to feel safe.
It’s upholstered.
It’s well-lit.
It speaks in sentences like, “your privacy is our top priority.”
And then—so gently you almost admire the choreography—it installs a tracking pixel and asks how you’re feeling today.
I’ve noticed something subtle in my couples work: life partners hesitate not only with each other, but increasingly with systems.
A few occasionally pause before answering my initial questions. Not because they lack insight—but because they’re not entirely sure who, or what, is also listening.
The BetterHelp Episode (Or: The Moment the Room Tilted)
In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against BetterHelp.
The allegation was not exotic. It was structurally predictable:
Sensitive mental health information was collected.
That information was shared with advertising platforms like Facebook and Snapchat.
While users were told—calmly, confidently—that their data was private.
If you want the government’s version—restrained, documented, and quietly unimpressed—you can read it here:https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-ban-betterhelp-revealing-consumers-data-including-sensitive-mental-health-information-facebook
The Distinction Everyone Suddenly Cares About
At this point, someone inevitably says:
“They didn’t sell the data.”
Correct.
They shared it with advertisers for targeting.
Which is the digital equivalent of saying:
“I didn’t auction your diary. I simply allowed excerpts to guide what follows you around the internet.”
The distinction is legal.
The experience is psychological.
And psychology, inconveniently, is precisely what we’re dealing with, isn’t it?
The Settlement (Polite Consequences, Carefully Worded)
BetterHelp agreed to:
Pay $7.8 million.
Stop using health data for advertising.
Obtain clearer consent moving forward.
The FTC’s follow-up—complete with refunds and a firm scold “don’t do that again”—is here: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/05/betterhelp-customers-will-begin-receiving-notices-about-refunds-related-2023-privacy-settlement-ftc
No admission of wrongdoing.
Because in modern regulatory theater, accountability often arrives wearing a blank expression.
It’s all fixed now, move on. Nothing to see here.
Was This an Outlier? (It Would Be Comforting If It Were)
It wasn’t.
GoodRx (Because Health Data Travels So Well)
The FTC also took action against GoodRx, alleging it shared health-related data—including medication information—with platforms like Facebook and Google.
The result:
A $1.5 million penalty.
A prohibition on using health data for advertising.
A clear summary lives here: https://www.axios.com/2023/02/01/goodrx-ftc-penalty-sharing-health-data-facebook-google
The Phrase That Should Give Us All Pause
BetterHelp reportedly described these practices as “industry standard.”
You can see that framing echoed here: https://apnews.com/article/befca40bb873661d1f8986bb75d8df07
“Industry standard” is one of those phrases that sounds reassuring until you translate it:
“This is common enough that no one inside the system is surprised.”
The Category Error That Did the Damage
BetterHelp looked like therapy.
It spoke like therapy.
It invited disclosure like therapy.
But parts of its infrastructure behaved like a data hungry marketing platform.
That mismatch is not cosmetic.
It is a category error—and category errors are where human trust quietly dissolves.
What People Thought They Were Entering
Clients believed BetterHelp was a space where:
Disclosure stays contained.
Meaning is explored, not repurposed.
The audience is exactly one trained human.
What Was Also True:
Abut BetterHelp was also a system where:
Data could interact with third-party advertising tools.
User behavior could inform targeting.
The boundary between client care and commerce was… fuzzy.
Why This Lands Differently
If your shopping app tracks you, you feel mildly surveilled.
If your therapy app tracks you, you feel reinterpreted.
Because therapy runs on a fragile premise:
Once that premise wobbles, everything about this sort of mental health experience begins to feel slightly transactional.
The Larger Pattern (Or: This Was Predictable)
We now live inside a structure where:
Intimacy is digitized.
Disclosure is scalable.
Attention is monetized.
As described in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,systems built on behavioral data tend to expand toward deeper and more predictive forms of extraction—not out of malice, but incentive alignment.
And incentives, unlike mission statements, are stubbornly honest.
If you’re noticing a quiet unease as you read this—something like, “I’ve probably assumed more privacy than actually exists”—that’s not paranoia.
That’s recalibration.
And recalibration, in relationships and in systems, unfortunately, tends to come later than it should.
A Better Question Than “Who Else Did This?”
The internet prefers a list.
Names. Culprits. A hierarchy of disappointment.
But the more useful question is:
“What kind of system makes this behavior feel normal?”
Answer:
Any system where:
Growth depends on user acquisition.
Revenue depends on targeting.
And engagement improves when people disclose more of themselves.
That’s not just one company.
The Therapist’s Note (Where This Gets Personal)
Folks come to therapy because they want to tell the truth somewhere.
Not perform it.
Not optimize it.
Not have it quietly rerouted into a category labeled high engagement user.
When that expectation bends—even slightly—you don’t just have a privacy issue.
You have a relational trust rupture at scale.
What a Sober Reader Might Actually Do
Not panic.
Not withdraw.
But perhaps:
Read privacy policies as if they were written by marketers with incentives. Because they were.
Notice when “privacy” is described as a feeling rather than a structure.
Distinguish between clinical environments and platform-mediated services.
Because this is the part nobody highlights during onboarding:
Privacy is not a promise. It’s an architecture that is either reliably built or not.
FAQ
Did BetterHelp sell user data?
No clear evidence shows they sold data in the traditional broker sense. However, regulators found they shared sensitive health-related data with advertising platforms, which many users experience as functionally similar.
Is online therapy private?
It depends on the platform. Some services operate under stricter healthcare privacy frameworks, while others function more like tech platforms with varying data-sharing practices.
Are therapy apps covered by HIPAA?
Not always. Many digital mental health platforms are not fully covered by HIPAA, especially if they are not structured as traditional healthcare providers or billing insurance.
What kind of data do mental health apps collect?
Typically:
Personal identifiers (email, IP address).
Usage data.
Intake questionnaire responses.
Behavioral and engagement data.
The key issue is not just collection—but how that data is used and shared.
Is BetterHelp safe to use now?
Following the FTC settlement, BetterHelp is required to change its data practices. Still, users on these sorts of platforms should review current privacy policies and make informed decisions about their level of comfort.
Final Thoughts
I want to be fair. BetterHelp didn’t invent this problem.
They revealed it.
Which is often how these things unfold:
First, it’s invisible.
Then, it’s standard.
Then, it’s regulated.
And finally, it becomes something we all understand just well enough to ignore.
When Reading About Relationships Isn’t Enough
My readers often first arrive here the way most of us arrive anywhere on the internet—following a thread, a question, a quiet suspicion that something isn’t working the way it should.
If you are finding your relationship caught in patterns that feel bigger than miscommunication—where trust, attention, or emotional safety have started to erode—you may not need more information. You may need a different structure.
Not weekly maintenance. Not vague exploration.
But focused, science-based intensive work designed to help couples see clearly and move decisively—often in a matter of days rather than months.
If that kind of clarity is what you’re looking for, you can learn more about how I work and what these intensives involve.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Federal Trade Commission. (2023). FTC to ban BetterHelp from revealing consumers’ data, including sensitive mental health information, to Facebook and others. Retrieved from https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-ban-betterhelp-revealing-consumers-data-including-sensitive-mental-health-information-facebook
Federal Trade Commission. (2024). BetterHelp customers will begin receiving notices about refunds related to 2023 privacy settlement. Retrieved from https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/05/betterhelp-customers-will-begin-receiving-notices-about-refunds-related-2023-privacy-settlement-ftc
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.