USA vs Cerebral Inc
A must-read for those who say these privacy violations are not intentional and that these companies "mean well."
No-brain business practices
On April 15, 2024, the FTC and DOJ resolved their complaint against Cerebral, a digital health service offering mental health (now including addiction) treatment. Cerebral was found to violate, Section 5 of the FTC Act (deceptive practices), the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act of 2018 (deceptive practices related to addiction treatment and recovery), and the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act (dark patterns).
NB - Cerebral is not in our database. When we started Cerebral was a mental health treatment app but did not include addiction treatment. In 2021/22, Cerebral ventured into addiction treatment (likely because of the relaxed telehealth prescribing rules...) When I expanded our analysis for Report +2 they did not fit the funding criteria (Cerebral never received NIH/NIDA funding). I probably won't include them in future reports because the FTC/DOJ is on it. One less company to track...thank you, FTC!
What did Cerebral do?
A lot. The complaint is a wild ride through some abhorrent business practices and clearly shows the intent behind these decisions.
