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A comment on Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app. Parent comment

Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by jacquesm on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @03:49PM (#10845900)
The worst that can happen to a good small company is that some overhyped and overfunded 'start-up' enters the field and spoils the trust built slowly and over a long time between the consumers and the suppliers of goods and services.

This is unfortunately not rare at all and the 'hotter' a market seems the more of these BS artists will enter. In the end you have the same product and the same relationship with your customers but you're going to end up spending a lot of time differentiating yourself from the snake oil peddlers and the damage they can do is very real.

Good companies have gone under in the wake of the scandals triggered by the fakers. Playing a long game while your field is being torn up by people playing a short game is extremely frustrating.

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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by xux on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @04:32PM (#10846224)
This is actually a form of corporate sabotage some companies use. You'll find it interesting to read about Coca Cola's Tab Clear[1].

Basically, Pepsi introduced a soda called Crystal Clear that was gaining momentum in the "clear soda" market. Coke wanted to sabotage the public perception, so they introduced "Tab Clear" and made it taste so terrible, that both products failed within 6 months. After that, no one wanted to touch clear soda for a while. (That is, until Coke reintroduced another drink called Sprite).

[1]http://thedailyjournalist.com/pen-and-pad/corporate-sabotage...

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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by eli on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @09:36PM (#10848050)
It seems much more likely that it was simply a poorly conceived and poorly marketed product.
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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by dhbanes on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @05:01PM (#10846396)
Wait, what? Sprite had been around long before Tab Clear came and went.
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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by freehunter on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @05:39PM (#10846650)
Well he did say "reintroduce". Looking quickly at the Wikipedia page, it looks like Sprite did have a rebranding effort done in 1994, so... maybe?
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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by nimblegorilla on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @05:00PM (#10846393)
Sprite and 7-Up have been around longer than that.
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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by SanFranManDan on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @11:50PM (#10848642)
"reintroduced"
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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by frik on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @04:31PM (#10846221)
> The worst that can happen to a good small company is that some overhyped and overfunded 'start-up' enters the field and spoils the trust

Like FB destroyed the trust of social networks, and ruined it for themself and their competitors? The same with chat with WhatsApp and other pseudo secure chat apps.

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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by nemothekid on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @05:51PM (#10846725)
This implies that the general public ever really cared about the fact that their messaging is secure.
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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by sanoli on Wednesday January 06, 2016 @10:17AM (#10850897)
Spot on. None, and I mean NONE of my non-tech friends give a damn about their email/messaging not being really private.
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Re:Lumosity fined $2M for deceptive ads of “Brain Training” app by kragen on Wednesday January 06, 2016 @03:26PM (#10853477)
I feel that I am in this position right now vis-a-vis internet startups in general: lots of overhyped and overfunded "start-ups" promising security, privacy, and freedom and delivering pervasive surveillance, imitation security, and extortion.
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