FTC urged to halt Your Baby Can Read ads
An advocacy group is asking the Federal Trade Commission to halt ads for a widely promoted product line called Your Baby Can Read, saying the claims of teaching infants to read are false and deceptive.
The complaint was filed Tuesday by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which has led a series of campaigns against what critics call the “genius baby” industry.
Your Baby Can Read - which consists of interrelated videos, flash cards and books - was developed in the late 1990s by Robert Titzer, an educator with a Ph.D in human performance from Indiana University. More than 1 million families have used the product since then, according to Titzer’s Carlsbad, Calif.-based company, Your Baby Can LLC, which advertises it extensively on TV, at exhibitions, and on its own website, Facebook page and YouTube channel.