Flo settles class action lawsuit alleging improper data sharing

Flo on Thursday settled with plaintiffs who had alleged the period tracking app improperly shared millions of women's sensitive sexual and reproductive data with Meta and other third parties.

Terms of the agreement were not available Friday morning. It comes on the eve of closing arguments in a high-profile class-action trial focused on the allegations, leaving Meta alone to face off against what plaintiffs’ lawyers say is a class of 38 million women.

Due to the large number of people in the class, the Northern California federal jury could reportedly award billions in damages.

Meta lawyers have reportedly denied that the company obtained the menstruation data from Flo.

The lawsuit alleges that Flo told users it would not share the data, but then let Meta place a software development kit (SDK) in the app, allowing the tech giant to receive data about the women’s periods for targeted advertising.

The lawsuit followed a 2019 Wall Street Journal story that alleged that Flo had provided the information to Meta, Google and other third parties.

Flo settled with the Federal Trade Commission in 2021 after the agency probed its data sharing practices, agreeing to obtain affirmative consent before sharing users’ data in the future.