Healthline Media to Pay Record California Privacy Penalty (1)

Healthline Media LLC will pay $1.55 million in penalties for privacy violations under a pending settlement with California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

The settlementannounced Tuesday is the largest for violations under the California Consumer Privacy Act.

The website publisher didn’t allow consumers to opt out of targeted advertising, and it shared data without the proper protections in place, according to Bonta’s office.

The company didn’t properly check if the opt-out mechanism worked, according to the attorney general’s complaint. It also allegedly assumed, without verifying, that third parties receiving data agreed to abide by state privacy standards, according to the complaint.

Healthline allegedly shared article titles read by consumers, which could reveal their health conditions. Disclosing health data for unexpected uses such as advertising violates the state law, the complaint said. Healthline didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Our settlement with Healthline underscores that Californians have critical privacy rights under the CCPA to fight online surveillance — including by website publishers,” Bonta said in a statement. “California continues to lead the nation in enforcing our robust privacy protection law, and businesses that collect consumer data must honor consumers’ privacy rights.”

The settlement also would prohibit Healthline from sharing articles that reveal a reader may have a medical condition and transmitting such data to third parties. The company will have to ensure consumers can opt out of data sharing, and it must audit its data-sharing contracts with third parties.

This is the fourth settlement by Bonta under the state privacy law. The previous largest penalty was Bonta’s settlement with Sephora for $1.2 million.

The California Privacy Protection Agency also announced its first enforcement penalties under the privacy law this year against American Honda Motor Co. and clothing retailer Todd Snyder, Inc.

The case is People of the State of California v. Healthline Media, LLC, Cal. Super. Ct., CGC-25-626794, unpublished.