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Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

> It's like someone sold carrots claiming they improve vision, and got thrown in jail.

No, it's not. It's like they were appropriately fined for profiting off unproven medical claims.

> Testimonials being paid for shills? Like, say it ain't so. Every damed commercial you've ever seen in your life has fake people presenting fake testimonials. It's assumed.

And they're labelled as an actor representation. Giving them a pass because it's "assumed" is irresponsible and harmful to those who might not otherwise know.

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> Giving them a pass because it's "assumed"

...is the law of the land in USA

It's called "puffery"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery

> In law, puffery is a promotional statement or claim that expresses subjective rather than objective views, which no "reasonable person" would take literally.

US Supreme Court has ruled that lying in ads is protected speech, up to some non-specified boundary:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100211/0133368126.shtml

I don't see exactly what that has to do with passing off solicited and compensated customer testimonials as unsolicited and uncompensated (as far as I'm aware).

And as the FTC's actions have indicated, making unproven claims of direct medical benefit is not simple puffery.

To add another reason why his analogy was irrelevant and misleading, no one got thrown in jail. Lumosity got fined 0.01% of what some bank fines have been over the past few years.

Relax, I was just posting a deliberate piece of hyperbole to test whether someone might want to fine me.

Then why the downvote? If I was just falling into your deliberate trap, you shouldn't be taking it out on my karma.

I never simultaneously downvote and reply to something. That shouldn't even be allowed. The downvote can be regarded as a form of reply to something that doesn't deserve the normal reply. Under that view, it is contradictory to apply both.

Why shouldn't that be allowed? I downvote and reply to comments I've downvoted if the comment is worth responding to, ie, I say why I downvoted. I don't downvote to disagree, I downvote because the content of the comment is not constructive or useful to the thread.

In short, I just downvoted you and then replied to you.

Why do you assume you know who downvoted you?

That is also a good point, though I don't see how the comparison to what banks were fined is relevant or enlightening.

I like to contextualize the real magnitude of 'illions. There are many people who hear "$2M" and think it's a large fine. It's actually relatively modest, and I wanted to provide a point of reference for people to know how modest.

I think a better yardstick would be comparison of fines for similar offenses.

> The order also imposes a $50 million judgment against Lumos Labs, which will be suspended due to its financial condition after the company pays $2 million to the Commission.

The whole piece is pretty unclear about whether they're shutting down Lumosity, or shutting down Lumos Labs while somehow not shutting down Lumosity.

Oh, I guess I misparsed this originally. I understood it as "The order imposes a $50 million judgment against Lumos Labs, and Lumos Labs will be suspended due to its financial condition after paying $2 million".

But, the article as a whole is more intelligible with the meaning "The order imposes a $50 million judgment against Lumos Labs, and the judgment will be suspended due to Lumos Labs' financial condition after it pays $2 million".

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