Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: Telehealth company facing FTC charges of deceptive practices, (Jul 29, 2026)

By Jody Coultas, J.D.

Hims & Hers allegedly shared sensitive health information and made it hard to cancel subscriptions.

The FTC announced today that it has filed a complaint against Hims & Hers Health, Inc. alleging that the company misled consumers about its prescription practices, security measures, and billing practices. Hims and Hers allegedly shared consumers’ sensitive health information about medical conditions with third-party advertising platforms and made it very difficult to cancel subscriptions. The suit is joined by the Attorneys General of California and Utah (FTC v. Hims & Hers Health, Inc., Case 3:26-cv-07871 (N.D. Cal. Jul. 29)).

Hims is an online telehealth company that offers medical treatment for specific conditions targeted towards male consumers on the Hims website and app and female consumers on the Hers website and app. Hims either owns or contracts with pharmacies to fulfill and ship its prescription products, and contracts with medical providers to provide medical services to consumers. Hims collects information from consumers and transmits that information to its partner medical providers, and consumers can only contact those providers through the Hims Platforms. Similarly, Hims sends consumers’ prescriptions to its partner pharmacies, and consumers cannot order prescriptions from these partner pharmacies directly.

Advertisements for Hims and Hers state that the company provides a “free consult” in which the consumer and a medical provider can “connect” to determine whether the consumer needs prescription medication and, if so, what medication should be prescribed. Consumers fill out an online medical intake form that will ultimately determine their eligibility for Hims’ prescription treatments. Prescriptions are only available by subscribing to Hims or Hers. The intake form asks for billing information despite assurances that they will not be charged unless and until medications are prescribed.

In a complaint filed in the federal district court in San Francisco, the FTC alleges that Hims does not give most consumers a consultation with a provider. Instead, by submitting their intake form, most consumers will unknowingly be charged for and subscribed to a prescription treatment without having a chance to review or approve it. Also, the complaint alleges that Hims does not clearly and conspicuously inform consumers when their prescriptions will be refilled each month, making it difficult to cancel before the next billing cycle.

The FTC also alleges that the company makes it extremely difficult to cancel its subscriptions. Prior to 2023, Hims only allowed most consumers to cancel by contacting customer service via phone, email, or chat and imposed additional hurdles that made it difficult for consumers to cancel. Even after introducing online cancellation to most consumers in 2023, the company made it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions by hiding the cancellation button from consumers, the FTC alleges. The button appeared only after these consumers selected an option to “add/remove items from order” and navigated several steps before they even saw the word “cancel.”

Furthermore, the FTC alleges that Hims shared sensitive health information with third-party advertising platforms despite promising to protect patient privacy. Hims shared its consumers’ health information with advertising platforms by sharing lists of certain customers with those companies. Hims also shared consumers’ health information via third-party tracking technologies that automatically shared certain “Events”—the actions of visitors on Hims’ website—with those companies.

The complaint includes charges for violations of the FTC Act, Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act, and California’s False Advertising and Unfair Competition Laws.

Companies: Hims & Hers Health, Inc.

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