Marc Patrick/BFA/REX/ShutterstockGwyneth Paltrow’s love-to-hate/hate-to-love lifestyle site Goop is firing back at a plethora of claims made by media watchdog group Truth In Advertising (TINA) on Tuesday.
Earlier today, a spokesperson for Goop told E! News, "Goop is dedicated to introducing unique products and offerings and encouraging constructive conversation surrounding new ideas. We are receptive to feedback and consistently seek to improve the quality of the products and information referenced on our site. We responded promptly and in good faith to the initial outreach from representatives of TINA and hoped to engage with them to address their concerns."
The statement continued, "Unfortunately, they provided limited information and made threats under arbitrary deadlines which were not reasonable under the circumstances. Nevertheless, while we believe that TINA’s description of our interactions is misleading and their claims unsubstantiated and unfounded, we will continue to evaluate our products and our content and make those improvements that we believe are reasonable and necessary in the interests of our community of users."
On Tuesday, TINA released its own statement revealing that after an investigation into Goop's marketing, the non-profit organization had filed a formal complaint with two California district attorneys California against the lifestyle site, alleging that the business has more than 50 examples of making "deceptive health and disease-treatment claims to promote products in violation of the law."
TINA's statement goes into further detail, explaining that, "Goop’s marketing has revealed more than 50 instances in which the company claims, either expressly or implicitly, that its products (or those it promotes) can treat, cure, prevent, alleviate the symptoms of, or reduce the risk of developing a number of ailments. These include crystal harmonics for infertility, rose flower essence tincture for depression, black rose bar for psoriasis, wearable stickers for anxiety, and vitamin D3 for cancer. The problem is that the company does not possess the competent and reliable scientific evidence required by law to make such claim."
The statement also alleges that TINA.org had warned Goop about the investigation in an Aug. 11 letter to the company and Paltrow.
The group claims that the letter detailed that it would be alerting the government of its findings unless Goop took "corrective action" by Aug. 18. The group claims that it provided Goop with a list of Goop and Goop-promoted web pages that made inaccurate health claims and that despite the information being given to the site, that only small changes were made to its marketing.
According to TINA's website, TINA.org is, "A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Madison, CT, whose mission is to be the go-to online resource dedicated to empowering consumers to protect themselves and one another against false advertising and deceptive marketing."