The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a consent agreement with Flo Health, Inc., a company accused of sharing users' menstrual and fertility data without their consent, violating laws against deceptive business practices. Flo Health had promised users their information would remain private but allegedly shared it with third parties like Facebook and Google. The proposed order, open for public comment, requires Flo Health to improve its privacy practices, notify users of the data sharing, and obtain users' express consent before sharing personal health information again. Additionally, there's a debate among FTC commissioners about whether further enforcement actions, such as applying the Health Breach Notification Rule, should be taken against Flo Health.
Simple Explanation
The FTC is telling Flo Health, a company that tracks periods, that they must stop sharing people's private information without asking, because they promised to keep it secret but didn't. Now, Flo Health has to fix their privacy rules and ask for permission first before sharing anything again.