A Watch Powered By Snake Oil
from the nice-try dept
For years there have been scam sites and spam claiming to sell special items that will help "protect" you from the "harmful effects of electromagnetic fields" such as is given off by mobile phones. The FTC cracked down on a bunch of the scams about a year ago. They were cheap tinfoil products that did nothing. So, what happens when someone takes that same concept and puts it in an expensive watch? Suddenly people are flocking to it. The fancy watch, which sells for $600 to $2,000 claims that it will protect you from harmful electromagnetic radiation - even though plenty of studies have shown the risks of most standard electromagnetic fields (especially from things like mobile phones) is minimal. The company selling the watches has donated them to plenty of celebrities and athletes, and they even get these "experts" to claim they perform better while wearing the watch. Apparently, if you want to sell scam products based on unfounded fears to the public, the trick is not to go for the "common people", but charge lots of extra money, and gets a few celebrities to buy into your snake oil.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]