Healthline
Contents9
| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1999 |
| Legal Structure | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Health Information |
| Also known as | |
| Official website | https://www.healthline.com |
Healthline Media, Inc. is an American website and provider of health information. It was founded in 1999 as YourDoctor.com. In July 2019, the company was acquired by Red Ventures.
Consumer-impact summary
Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):
- User Freedom
- User Privacy
- Business Model
- Market Control
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Incidents
Add one-paragraph summaries of incidents below in sub-sections, which link to each incident's main article while linking to the main article and including a short summary. It is acceptable to create an incident summary before the main page for an incident has been created. To link to the page use the "Hatnote" or "Main" templates.
If the company has numerous incidents then format them in a table (see Amazon for an example).
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This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Healthline category.
Violating California's CCPA (2025.07.01)
On 01 July 2025, the California Attorney General announced in a press release that they have reached a settlement with Healthline over the company's violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). In an investigation conducted by the California DOJ, Healthline violated the CCPA by failing to provide consumers with the option to opt-out of targeted advertising and sharing user data to third parties without implementing "CCPA-mandated privacy protections". This shared data also included suggesting that a person may suffer from a serious health condition. The settlement resulted in $1.55 million in civil pentalties and banning the company from revealing that a consumer may have already been diagnosed with a medical condition.[1]
Usage of AI generation
In their "ABOUT US" page they mention:
In some cases, Artificial Intelligence (AI), or similar technology, may be used in developing elements of our content.[2]
Medical information is a highly delicate matter and AI which is known to quite frequently "hallucinate" can generate bogus information which may mislead a potentially vulverable person to make a life threatening decision.
Rejecting cookies restricts site access
Like many websites, Healthline asks for cookies upon accessing the site. Upon clicking on "Reject All", the user is taken to a "Anon" page which includes only 10 articles. On the same page they expain their reasoning:
We believe that health information should be free to everyone and we rely on advertising to make this possible on our family of websites Healthline, Medical News Today, Greatist, and Psych Central. Providing the best health information in the world is expensive. We spend up to thousands of dollars per article to ensure it is accurate and precise with quality review by a doctor or other certified, trained medical professional.[3]
Publishing misinformation
Products
This is a list of the company's product lines with articles on this wiki.
- Example product line one (release date): Short summary of the product's incidents.
- Example product line two (release date):
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See also
Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.
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References
- ↑ "Attorney General Bonta Announces Largest CCPA Settlement to Date, Secures $1.55 Million from Healthline.com". State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General. 2025-07-01. Archived from the original on 20 Feb 2026. Retrieved 2026-01-25.
- ↑ "ABOUT US". Healthline. Archived from the original on 2026-01-06. Retrieved 2026-01-06.
- ↑ "Healthline". Healthline. Archived from the original on 2026-01-06. Retrieved 2026-01-06.