If you think an app that helps prevent Alzheimer's disease sounds too good to be true, you were right. According to the FTC, that is.
The makers of Lumosity, a self described "brain-training" app that claimed to help users improve cognitive performance, will pay $2 million as the result of a settlement with the FTC over deceptive advertising.
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Lumos Labs "deceived consumers with unfounded claims that Lumosity games can help users perform better at work and in school, and reduce or delay cognitive impairment associated with age and other serious health conditions," says an FTC statement released Tuesday.
In addition to the $2 million, Lumos Labs is required to notify users who subscribed to an auto-renewal plan between January 2009 and December 31, 2014, alerting them to the FTC settlement and offering a way to cancel their subscription.
The FTC also said Lumos Labs misled consumers with its user testimonials, some of which were obtained by promising "significant prizes" such as free iPads and a lifetime subscription to the service.
The settlement is likely a serious blow to the startup, which was founded in 2005 and has more than 70 million registered users in 182 countries, according to stats listed on the company's website. A spokesperson for Lumos Labs did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment.
For years, the company has has touted its games as being "designed by scientists to challenge core cognitive abilities." But the FTC said Tuesday that claims its mobile games were backed by scientific studies were unfounded.
“Lumosity preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease,” Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “Lumosity simply did not have the science to back up its ads.”
Update, January 5, 2015, 2:40 p.m. PT: In a statement, a spokesperson for Lumos Labs told Mashable "neither the action nor the settlement pertains to the rigor of our research or the quality of the products — it is a reflection of marketing language that has been discontinued. We invest heavily in research and game development to ensure that our products are engaging and provide value to users."
You can read the company's full statement below.
Lumos Labs, doing business as Lumosity, recently reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission regarding certain advertising language used in previous marketing campaigns. This decision will allow the company to continue delivering its research-based cognitive training platform to millions of active and future users.Neither the action nor the settlement pertains to the rigor of our research or the quality of the products — it is a reflection of marketing language that has been discontinued. Our focus as a company has not and will not change: We remain committed to moving the science of cognitive training forward and contributing meaningfully to the field’s community and body of research.
Lumosity has made strong contributions to the scientific community, including our work with the Human Cognition Project initiative.We invest heavily in research and game development to ensure that our products are engaging and provide value to users. The recent peer-reviewed clinical test published in the journal PLOS One is a large, randomized, active-controlled trial of our cognitive training program. The study reported that participants who trained with Lumosity for 10 weeks improved on an aggregate assessment of cognition. Going forward, a key focus of our ongoing research is to build on these studies to better understand how training-driven improvements on tests of cognition translate to performance in participants' everyday lives.
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