Consumer protection body levies fines on apps designed to detect skin cancer and improve eyesight
WASHINGTON – The Federal Trade Commission has settled charges with an app company, which claimed its product could improve users’ eyesight. Under the terms of the settlement, Ultimeyes will be forbidden from making false claims about its product and will be forced to give up $150,000 in profits.
The Ultimeyes app was marketed in the form of an interactive game “scientifically designed” to improve vision. The app was meant to be used four times a week over an eight-week period. Its designers claimed that if used this way it could create sharper vision and dramatically improve the ability to see in dim light.
Jessica Rich, head of the commission’s consumer protection unit noted these claims were completely false saying, “Ultimeyes promoters did not have the scientific evidence to support their claims that the app could improve users’ vision.”
The FTC also released evidence that the studies the company cited came from investors in the app.
Ultimeyes netted close to $350,000 in profits beginning in 2012. The commission has put forward the ruling against the company as part of a renewed push to crack down on deceptive health care apps including two that claimed to be able to detect skin cancer.
Apps MelApp and Mole Detective prompted users to take a picture of a worrisome skin spot ahead of a medical assessment for the presence of skin cancer.
The app makers were fined and required to stop making medical claims without supporting evidence.
There was some dissention from within the FTC with member Maureen Ohlhausen cautioning that the crackdown could slow the development of other health care apps, and said that the level of scientific testing was too high and the standards were too “amorphous.”
