OMICS vs. The FTC: Plagiarism at a Predatory Publisher

OMICS International is a large open access (OA) academic publishing group. Founded in 2007, OMICS has since grown rapidly and now boasts of having over 700 journals with over 50,000 editorial board members. However, the rise of OMICS has not been welcomed by everyone; the company has been branded a 'predatory publisher', accused of spamming academics, and of organizing poor quality 'academic conferences'. Given this background, it was not so surprising when we learned, last week, that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to sue OMICS. The FTC say that OMICS "regularly deceive consumers"; for instance, while the company "claim that their journals follow rigorous peer-review practices", in fact, "Many articles are published with little to no peer review".