State of Washington vs. Internet Advancement Inc.

“The wages of sin are death…” Romans 6:23

A court settlement leveled Wednesday in Seattle’s King County Superior Court prohibits a shady SEO firm from selling or advertising SEO services to new customers. The firm, Internet Advancement has seen years of consumer complaints filed against them.

Wednesday’s judgment actually stems from a suit filed on August 11, 2004 for violations of the Consumer Protection Act and the Unsolicited Electronic Mail Act.

Facing civil penalties, fines and fees totaling $154,345.36, Internet Advancement and its owner are bound to a rigorous improvement of its business practices and customer support.

Under terms of the settlement, announced by Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna, the complaint ridden SEO firm Internet Advancement is not allowed to:

- Engage new SEO customers through advertising or offerings
- Misrepresent its success rate, ability to provide top search engine ranknigs or increase Web traffic or its number of repeat customers,
- Misrepresent contractual obligations
- Fail to disclose, clearly and conspicuously, all material contract terms before prospective customers have agreed to be charged for services,
- Fail to respond promptly to consumers’ requests for fulfillment of guarantees, refund requests or other requests for services or information, (the court defines “prompt” as 3 business days)
- Charge customer credit cards without authorization,
- Bill consumers after they have canceled contracts,
- Represent that a customer isn’t entitled to a refund because the customer performed changes to the source code of his or her website unless a third-party technical expert confirms that the changes were made or authorized by the customer.
- Fail to cancel contracts upon customer request
- Fail to provide ranking reports or other services they contractually agreed to.

Internet Advancement is allowed to continue practicing website design and can advertise web design services to new clients provided they do not offer:

- Keyword research or creation,
- Metatag creation; or
- Search engine submissions

as part of their services. The company is also allowed to continue providing SEO services to existing clients.

Further to the judgment, Internet Advancement Inc. (and all named defendants) must “implement and/or maintain the following business practices on an ongoing basis”:

- Monitoring Accounts monthly to insure search engine rankings according to customer’s contracts have been met (for existing SEO customers)
- Notifiy exisiting SEO customers by email that they are refund eligible if [guaranteed] search engine rankings are not achieved.
- Respond in a timely fashion to customer requests for refunds for SEO services
- Establish a toll-free telephone and fax number for the exclusive use of customers
- Employ a full time employee to answer incoming phone calls as opposed to having sales people receive calls
- Ensure all department heads have access to customer data, customer inquiries, customer status and monthly customer ranking reports
- Make the status of accounts available to all department heads
- Maintain improvied ranking software that gives existing SEO customers better information on the status of how well their sites are ranking on search engines and improves the quality and level of data provided monthly to existing SEO customers.
- Retain an experienced controller to restructure the Accounting Department,
- Maintain new and improved accounting, credit card processing and refund procedures,
- Maintain improvements to financial reporting and rebuilding a recurring billing system to ensure proper billings,
- Maintain safeguards for customer credit card information
- Discharge, where appropriate, managers, sales personnel and customer services personnel due to unacceptable performance, poor customer service or failure to adhere to company procedures,
- Give existing SEO customers access to ranking reports
- Maintain phone software to monitor customer calls with sales staff
- Record random calls to monitor if any promises are being made that are not within contract terms
- Maintain an Online “No Promises” System to ensure that the sales team is not making non-contract promises to customers and to ensure customers understand what they are buying
- Not accept contacts or credit card until the “No Promises” System clears the contract as having no promises
- Maintain a new triple check system to require refund/cancellation specialist sign-off, customer service manager review, and accounting final review for all refunds,
- Maintain a list of platforms and web site types that should not be sold to,
- Provide sales personnel in any current or future Internet business with a list of representations the sales personnel may not make to any prospective customers. That list shall include the following prohibited representations:

a/ Promises regarding ranking customers will achieve on any search engines;
b/ Promises regarding traffic customers will achieve;
c/ Promises regarding sales customers will achieve;
d/ Promises that the company will provide keyword research or metatag creation; and
e/ Promises that the company will make submissions on the client’s behalf to any search engines.

Though the case took almost four years to get to this point, the Washington State Court system has stated unequivocally that consumers will be protected against snake-oil sales. This is a good judgment for the SEO community as it upholds the duty of fair practice, good business and honesty. It might also stand as a sign-post in the current SEO/SEM Standards debate.