Lab-grown diamond

Marketing and classification

In May 2018, De Beers announced that it would introduce a new jewelry brand called "Lightbox" that features synthetic diamonds, which was notable as the company was the world's largest diamond miner and had previously been an outspoken critic of synthetic diamonds. In July 2018, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved a substantial revision to its Jewelry Guides, with changes that impose new rules on how the trade can describe diamonds and diamond simulants. The revised guidelines were substantially contrary to what had been advocated in 2016 by De Beers. The new guidelines remove the word "natural" from the definition of "diamond", thus including lab-grown diamonds within the scope of the definition of "diamond". The revised guide further states that "If a marketer uses 'synthetic' to imply that a competitor's lab-grown diamond is not an actual diamond, ... this would be deceptive." According to the new FTC guidelines, the GIA dropped the word "synthetic" from its certification process and report for lab-grown diamonds in July 2019.