US: FTC charges group with duping researchers

The US Federal Trade Commission has charged OMICS Group Inc, a Nevada corporation with Hyderabad as its principal place of business, the publisher of “hundreds of purported online academic journals with deceiving researchers about the nature of its publications and hiding publication fees ranging from hundred to thousands of dollars”. The complaint is against two other affiliated companies.

The FTC, which is an independent agency of the US government and created by statute, has filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada for permanent injunction and other equitable relief. “The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest,” a FTC press release says. The OMICS Group has since at least 2009 published online publications “styled as academic journals”.

In order to solicit articles and manuscripts from consumers, the publishers claim that “various academic experts serve as editors, are members of the editorial boards, and consumers’ articles are subject to industry-standard peer review before publishing. They also represent that their journals have high impact factors”.

But “in reality, in many instances, the academic experts identified by Defendants [OMICS Group] lack any connection with Defendants’ journals. Further, in many instances, articles submitted for publishing do not undergo standard peer review before publishing. And journals’ impact factors are not calculated by Thomson Reuters, nor are their journals included in PubMed Central” the FTC’s complaint says.

Full Content: Imperial Valley News

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