Do cell phones really cause cancer? The majority of existing research says probably not, but a Florida company still is trying to scare consumers into buying a "cancer safe" handset. It’s time to introduce the “Bozo of the Month,” my way of rewarding those who rip off, mess up, prevaricate, and otherwise shame the world of technology and embarrass themselves in the process. Generally speaking, my Bozos (I write a business blog for our sister publication InfoWorld) almost always come from the ranks of big companies when they take advantage of their customers (hello, AT&T and Facebook), or do something egregiously stupid that hurts their shareholders (glad to meet you, Hewlett-Packard). But little companies? No. My policy is that when little companies mess up or try to sell junk, I figure no one cares so I just ignore them. But not today. A company called iMobifone is trying to exploit people’s fears of cancer by selling what must be one of the dumbest products I’ve ever seen – and with nearly 20 years covering tech, I’ve seen some really dumb ones. It’s an old-fashioned handset, complete with a curly rubber phone wire that plugs into a cell phone. This $24.95 kludge is billed as “The solution for cell phone radiation.” Right. You’re afraid that you might be exposed to brain killing radiation by talking on your cell phone. So buy this cool retro device and you’ll be safe. Maybe tin foil hats are next. The ads and other marketing material for the handset are filled with scary stuff about the alleged correlation between cell phone use and brain cancer. One ad reads: “Cell phones emit radiation whenever they send voice or text messages, and a decade long Interphone projectstudy discovered a strong correlation between heavy cell phone usage and three types of brain cancer.” Hilariously enough, whoever wrote the marketing copy never bothered to follow the embedded link. If they had, they would have noticed that the Interphone study did not link cell phone usage to cancer. Here what the researchers who conducted the British section of the 13-nation research project actually said: “Use of a mobile phone, either in the short or medium term, is not associated with an increased risk of glioma. [brain cancer]. Overall, we found no raised risk of glioma associated with regular mobile phone use and no association with time since first use, lifetime years of use, cumulative hours of use, or number of calls. We note that this result is consistent with most of the previous studies in this field and the significant body of research reporting no health risk from using mobile phones.” There are, however, serious people who doubt that conclusion, and if you’re really worried, there are steps you can take. At first I thought the e-mail pitch I got from a guy named Sean Ryan — who works for the Rosen Group, a New York PR agency — was a bad joke. But he assured me that it wasn’t. and iMobifone’s website has a working e-commerce section where you can buy this turkey. Even if it were a joke, it wouldn’t be funny. Know any cancer patients? I bet they’re not laughing. Even worse is the blatant exploitation of people’s fears. Fortunately, these guys are such clumsy bozos I don’t think many people will take them seriously or waste money on their useless product. Sean Ryan and iMobifone, congratulations! You’re Consumer Tech Radar’s first Bozos of the Month. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe