Photon Journal is a clear nominee for the worst predatory on line journal

Roger Dmochowski is highly regarded international academic urologist.  His name on a presentation or publication carries weight and implies quality of content.  This is precisely why one of these so called predatory journals would stoop so low to essential steal his credability.  

Lately, I have been receiving numerous emails from an online publisher called Photon Journal.  They have created a journal in my field called the Journal for Urology.  This journal name is rather similar to the established Journal of Urology which is a prestigious journal owned by the American Urological Association.  The header of the email has the Dr Dmochowski’s name with the intent to grab our attention. They know that his name implies that there is content that is worth taking notice of.  

The links in the email take you to a amateur site with no academic content.  Just numerous self grandiose ideas of how professional, established and reputable they are as a publishing group.  

I wrote to Dr Dmochowski to determine if he was aware of these emails.  It was clear from his response that he was. He mentioned that legal recourse has not swayed them at all.  I also forwarded it to the Publications Committee of the AUA who also indicated that they were aware and it was clear that they were frustrated.  To quote

"We have received numerous emails regarding this group and Dr. Dmochowski has even tried to contact them personally about the use of his name but to no avail.  However, thanks for notifying us."

The emails have continued and there was in fact a mini run of them where 4 were sent in the space of about 4 hours, perhaps just in case I did not read the first few.

We have seen a number of these predatory on line journals stoop to pretty low tactics but I think Photon Journals take the prize for the worst offender I have seen to date.  It is one thing to financially rip off scientists and medical researchers but stealing their identity has gone too far.

Let me know if you have had any experience with the Photon Journal group.


Make sure you check out my earlier piece about OMICS