Woah, the thing that leapt out at me, as a professor, is that they somehow got an exemption from the UMN institutional review board. Uh, how?? It's clearly human subjects research under the conventional federal definition[1] and obviously posed a meaningful risk of harm, in addition to being conducted deceptively. Someone has to have massively been asleep at the wheel at that IRB.
[1] https://grants.nih.gov/policy-and-compliance/policy-topics/h...