FTC: 'Your Baby Can Read' ads deceptive - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Your baby can read? Maybe not.

The Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against Robert Titzer, the man behind the "Your Baby Can Read" program. Regulators accuse him of false and deceptive advertising for promoting his program in ads and product packaging as a tool to teach infants as young as nine months to read.

The program used a combination of videos, flash cards and pop-up books and was advertised on television, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. It cost about $200 and was sold nationwide at retails stores, including Walmart and Babies R Us.

The FTC says the company and its president and chief executive until March 2010, Hugh Penton Jr., also were named in the complaint. Both have agreed to settle the charges. The settlement imposes a $185 million judgment - equal to the company's gross sales since 2008 - but most of it would be suspended due to the company's failing financial condition.

The company, based in Carlsbad, Calif., announced earlier this year that it was going out of business. It cited the high cost of fighting complaints alleging that its ads were false.

The company had said more than a million families have used the "Your Baby Can Read" products. One 30-minute television infomercial featured home video of a 2-year-old girl who used the program and was purportedly reading a page from the children's book, "Charlotte's Web."

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