Ethics and Standards

Sites 9

• Black Hat SEO Worst practices, software and gimmicks to avoid.
• CommercialAlert Complaint to the FTC Details CommercialAlert's 2001 complaint of deceptive advertising in search results, and the FTC's ruling from 2002.
• The Curse of Cloaking Describes the action of cloaking and explains why you should not do it.
• Email Marketing Ethics and Spam Reporting Guide to avoiding being spammed and sending e-mail without spamming.
• The Classification of Search Engine Spam Offers a guide to search engine spam that allows search engine marketers to objectively evaluate actions to see whether those actions equate to spamming a search engine. Aims to provide the basis of an industry standard.
• FTC Halts Internet Pagejacking Scam Documents how the FTC stopped a scheme to mislead consumers to porn sites via search engines. First time a government agency asserted regulatory authority over search engine listings.
• Search Engine Disclosure Ratings: May 2003 Reviews major search engines to see if disclosures of paid content are clear and conspicuous.
• Desperately Seeking Search Engine Marketing Standards Reviews efforts to create standards for SEO industry and search engine marketing professionals.
• The Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations 1988 UK Act of Parliament that covers misleading advertising on the Internet.