102: AccessiBe Fined $1M for Lying About Fixing Accessibility, Hi Sign Brewing Violet Blueberry Blonde

In this episode, we talk through the specifics of the recent $1 million FTC fine against well-known accessibility overlay company AccessiBe, and some of the public comments on the decision from individuals with disabilities, small businesses, and many others.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvB0odARLoY

Mentioned in this Episode

Transcript

Chris: Welcome to the Accessibility Craft Podcast, where we explore the art of creating accessible websites while trying out interesting craft beverages. This podcast is brought to you by the team at Equalize Digital, a WordPress accessibility company, and the proud creators of the Accessibility Checker plugin.

And now, on to the show.

Amber: Hey everybody, it’s Amber and I’m here today with Steve.

Steve: Hello everyone.

Amber: And Chris.

Chris: Howdy, howdy.

Amber: And we are going to be talking about AccessiBe and their recent issues that they’re having with the FTC. But of course, before we dive into that, we are going to have a beverage. And if you want to access show notes for this episode, you can go over to AccessibilityCraft.com/102.

Today’s Beverage

Amber: Chris, what are we drinking?

Chris: We are having Hi Sign Brewing’s Violet Blueberry Blonde. So kind of a tongue twister, but it is a Blonde beer should have some blueberries in it. I don’t know a whole lot else about it, but hopefully we’re going to get an interesting colored beer to pour into a glass.

Amber: So I’ve not had this one from Hi Sign, but I’ve had other Hi Sign Brewings and I know that they have gotten a bunch of awards in Austin. So they are local to us here in Austin, Texas. Someday, Steve, I think you should take the company credit card and you should go buy a bunch of Ohio beers and mail them to us.

Steve: Yeah, we’ll do that. Definitely.

Amber: We can have like, like a string of Ohio beers instead of just Texas beers. Be sort of fun.

Chris: We had California beers for a while when I was ordering them online, then Texas. We got to do Ohio next.

Amber: Yeah. So I will say like I’ve been looking at the label. I like the label on this one.

It’s super clean. It passes color contrast. See, you can look at this. I think it’s a beautiful design. It has a kind of a light blue container. Oh, Steve’s got better focus than I do. We’re going to let Steve show it. It’s got like a, an illustration, an artistic looking illustration of blueberries in a, one of those little pint containers light blue, dark blue.

The “Hi” is kind of cute next to it with a stylized, almost cursive font. And then it’s got the, that dark purpley blue for the name of the brewery and the name of the beer. And you can read the can. And you know what? It’s well designed and accessible.

Chris: Well, let’s crack these open. I want to see what the inside of the can looks like here. I’m going to try to get a pour on camera.

Amber: Yeah, me too. Got my pint glass.

Ooh, it smells blueberry- y.

Steve: Yeah, really right away.

Amber: Oh, it’s not blue.

Chris: I’m genuinely surprised with how how much color and pigment blueberries have that there isn’t a tint. But…

Amber: I mean, to be fair, the middle of blueberries are not blue.

Chris: That’s true. Maybe they don’t have the skins. Maybe it’s like a juice.

Amber: Yeah. So…

Chris: They have an intern skinning blueberries.

Amber: It’s kind of a orangey color, like a golden orangey. And I poured mine and it gave me like an inch of foam.

Steve: Yeah, that’s good.

Like I’m I like blonde beers more than most. But yeah, I like this a lot.

Amber: Steve already, he’s like, I don’t care what color it is. I just want to know how it tastes.

Steve: No, that’s good. The blueberry at the, like comes after the drink, kind of.

Chris: Ooh. That’s great.

Steve: Yeah.

Amber: This is good. I think this one is going to get a thumbs up from everybody, right?

Chris: Yeah. It’s like everything, it’s everything that I want in a beer. It has good balance of all the elements. It’s not overly hopped. It’s not overly malty. It’s like medium bodied. It’s got good backbone in terms of acidity. Very refreshing. I feel like I could have it with food or without food.

Maybe for me, it’s like versatility, right?

Amber: What would you, what food would you have with it?

Chris: Give me a minute. Let me think about it.

Amber: Okay. Well, while you think about that, I’m going to say something interesting that I go back to that strawberry beer that both of you could not taste strawberry in.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah.

Amber: I could taste strawberry in that beer. I like this beer. It’s good. I can’t taste blueberry.

Steve: Really?

Amber: You guys can taste the blueberry?

Steve: Even on the finish like like…

Amber: It’s on the finish that you get it?

Steve: Yeah.

Amber: Well, I smell blueberry.

Steve: It’s almost like it comes in right at the end to kind of take away some of the bitterness of the beer flavor like…

Chris: Yeah, I think you’re spot on, Steve, of where I’m detecting it, too.

It’s kind of like this undertone throughout for me.

Amber: I don’t get it.

Chris: But at the very end is when it’s most obvious.

Amber: I think it’s good, but it doesn’t taste like blueberries to me at all. It smells like blueberries, but it doesn’t taste like blueberries.

Steve: I might go out on a limb and say this is probably my favorite beer we’ve tried.

Amber: Wow! Alright, so everybody needs to try Hi Sign Brewing Violet Blueberry Blonde. And this should be a short little clip that we put on YouTube and maybe they’ll re share it for us.

Chris: And when you have this beer, have it with either some really nice caramelized like dry rub smoked chicken wings, or just like some chicken tenders, with a solid, like either ranch or blue cheese dressing. That’s what I think.

Amber: What?

Chris: Yeah.

Amber: This is a beer that goes well with ranch salad dressing?

Chris: Well, no, like the chicken is like fried food or wings. Like to me, I think the beer has the acidity to stand up to that and really cut it. And, but still, like, I think it is a, I think this is like a beer that you would put with bar food.

Steve: Yeah.

Amber: Yeah.

Steve: Very good.

Amber: I mean, I will say the one thought that I did have about it, even when I saw it, was I was a little bit like, it’s freezing cold outside, snow. You have snow, Steve?

Steve: Yeah.

Amber: I feel like this is more of a Summer beer.

Steve: Yeah, I agree with that. Or I mean, I kind of agree with Chris. Like if you go to the Buffalo Wild Wings and you’re sitting there watching a ball game, right? Like this is like kind of beer for that, right?

Amber: Yeah.

Chris: Totally, totally.

Amber: OK, maybe I’m getting it a little bit more.

Chris: Definitely not weather appropriate.

Steve: Yeah.

Amber: I don’t know.

Steve: Two thumbs up.

Amber: Two thumbs up? I give it one thumb up. I think it’s a thumbs up. I like it, but I can’t taste the blueberry as much as I thought I would. But I don’t know, maybe their beautiful can design balances that.

Steve: There you go. Puts it over the top.

Amber: Yep. Yeah. All right. So we are going to talk today about a announcement that came out from the FTC, which is that AccessiBe, the overlay company, is going to be fined one million dollars for lying about fixing accessibility. That’s, those are my paraphrasing. FTC did not use the word lying. So that is totally me, but …

Steve: I feel like you should say it like Dr. Evil though, like “1 million dollars.”

Amber: Okay, you do that. This is the Austin Powers version of this podcast.

Steve: “1 million dollars.” Oh yeah, that’s how he does it. Chris, that’s right. I

Amber: How does, oh, the pinky next to the…

Steve: Like up against the face, yeah.

Amber: So, so let’s talk a little bit about that. I put a few like paraphrase things from the FTC’s press release there. I don’t know if anybody wants to dive in and share that summary.

Details on the FTC Fine Against AccessiBe

Chris: Yeah, I can read this.

So as we’ve said they are, the FTC is fining AccessiBe 1 million dollars for false claims. And we have a quote here start of the quote: “Companies looking for help making their websites WCAG compliant must be able to trust that products do what they are advertised to do,” says Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Overstating a product’s, AI or other capabilities without adequate evidence is deceptive and the FTC will act to stop it.” In addition to that, the complaint is alleging that AccessiBe deceptively formatted third party articles and reviews to appear as if they were independent opinions.

Amber: Can we say AccessibilityChecker.org? Anyone’s been to that website, I’m 99% sure that website is AccessiBe’s fake, like they’re pretending it’s not them.

Chris: And they made these things look like independent opinions, but it was basically bought and paid for content. And they also failed to disclose that the company had material connections to the supposedly objective reviewers of their product. And I would venture to say that might even be tied to some of the, I’ve seen videos of individuals with disabilities espousing their support for AccessiBe. And I’ve always wondered about that considering how widespread the criticisms are from the disability community.

Amber: Oh, like were they paid?

Chris: Were they paid, right? And the agreement is subject to public comment for 30 days after which the commission will decide whether to make the proposed consent order final.

Amber: And this episode is coming out on January 27th. The comment period ends on February 5th. So you still have time that you could go submit a comment if you have an opinion about this.

There’s a note at the bottom of their press release that says once they issue a final consent order, then it also carries the force of law with respect to future actions or violations. So if AccessiBe does not resolve the problem and they continue to have false advertising and/or undisclosed affiliate relationships with people who are promoting them, then any, each violation of such an order can result in a civil penalty of up to $51,744.

Which is a lot for, you know, posting one testimonial on YouTube without acknowledging it was paid, right?

$51,000 fine. So yeah, I thought it would be interesting for us to talk about this. What’s, Steve, what’s your immediate reaction when you saw this news?

Our Reactions and Thoughts

Steve: Well, I mean, I think on one level it’s, you know, it doesn’t feel like enough of a fine, but on the other end it It does seem to go further than I think previous lawsuits have ended just in, you know, monetary payout, right?

They didn’t have to change their deceptive marketing practices, right? So this goes a step further in putting some enforcement into them actually having to modify their false claims or their I guess they’re false claims, right? Like we can say that, right? I mean, the FTC is saying it. FTC is saying it.

So, so, so I think it goes a step further and does require them to make those changes or at least, and disclose the connections and paid testimonials that they may have. So I think that’s a net plus. I definitely like, after the 30 day period, the final judgment on this, it would be nice if that penalty was a little bit higher, because I think if you read further, it goes into saying that that money can be used for refunds.

Amber: Yeah, or to like maybe reimburse business owners who’ve been sued for using their AccessiBe.

Steve: So, and I can see that, I can see that eating through a million dollars really quickly. Right? Like their user base is on, I don’t know, like specifically on the widget, like what the user base is, but I mean, I think it’s like, hundreds of thousands of users, right?

Amber: So I looked this up on BuiltWith cause I was sort of curious. And there’s a really interesting chart, which we can link to in the show notes. BuiltWith is a website, if you’re not familiar with it, that tracks, like it uses technology to scan and look at JavaScript snippets or where code is being pulled from, and then it tracks what technologies are in use on what websites. And it could see 74,000 active websites right now with AccessiBe. But all time it’s tracked over 120,000. And their cheapest plan is $490 a year. So that gives you some idea. So, so even if we were only looking at, let’s say the difference between 120,000 and 74,000 as, maybe those were the people who were using it and got sued and removed it, right?

Or were unhappy with it because they realized it wasn’t actually doing what it promised. Even if you were looking at that as the claim pool, there’s, I mean, $490, like we’re gonna pay you back for one year of paying for AccessiBe, nothing else. That is obviously way more, I mean, what is that like twenty million dollars or something?

Steve: Yeah, like a million dollars would only cover like maybe 1 percent of the user base, 2 percent, I don’t, right? Like…

Amber: Of the churned user base, not even the current user base.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: In the context of today’s value of money and in the context of a company of any size, a million dollars is not a whole lot of money.

Amber: I mean, honestly, It’s not a lot of money,

Chris: But it’s not a lot of money at the same time.

Amber: But it’s also, it’s not even a lot of money for a person anymore. Like we actually had this joke at dinner the other night, we were talking about how we used to watch with our families and our kids Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

And it was just like, mind blowing to imagine that people would win a million dollars and, oh my gosh, that would like, like, wow, you’d be set for life. And now in the US, it’s like, well, once you pay taxes on it…

I guess you could pay off your house, which would be really awesome.

Steve: Yeah.

Amber: Right, but it’s like, I don’t know.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, what’s AccessiBe pulling? They doing 40 million revenue or something like…

Chris: It’s like 50 according to estimates I’ve seen, it’s like 50 million plus in 2024.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: !And apparently between 2023 and 2024, they like 2x their revenue, which I didn’t know. They were like in the twenties and then they were fifty plus.

Steve: Yeah. Which I mean, maybe that’s something we could talk about. Like I’ve always found it interesting from our side, right. From the more advocacy side of the business of accessibility. It, this is, you know, these type of overlays are just no nos, just like, don’t touch them with a 50 foot pole. But what we’re learning is that users don’t really, they don’t, they’re not educated in that. And that’s why they’re clamping down on these deceptive practices.

Amber: They take advantage of people not knowing better and not being technical. Yeah. Let’s all right. Let’s talk about that. But first, let’s take a commercial break.

Brought to you by Accessibility Checker

Steve: This episode of Accessibility Craft is sponsored by Equalized Digital Accessibility Checker, the WordPress plugin that helps you find accessibility problems before you hit publish. Thousands of businesses, nonprofits, universities, and government agencies around the world trust Accessibility Checker to help their teams find, fix, and prevent accessibility problems on an ongoing basis.

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Reviewing Some of the Public Comments

Amber: Alright. So we think they’re taking advantage of people who are not technical and that’s why they’ve been able to grow?

Chris: Their entire product is designed to be a product for website owners first. And in theory, individuals with disabilities second, or maybe third, I don’t know. But it’s chief, their chief purpose is to give website owners the feeling that they have checked a box and addressed the problem.

Amber: Yeah, I was going through the comments that have been submitted. So as of today, as we record, there’s 26, one of which is clearly not relevant to this. I think someone submitted it on the wrong thing. So 25. And there was a comment there from a company called Jobvious Inc. And what they said was, “This company, AccessiBe, has bombarded me with promotions and calls claiming my website is not accessible and I will get a lawsuit, but they will help me. This makes me realize this was all just hype.” Now it’s interesting because they might not be wrong. This person’s website probably is not accessible if they haven’t put any effort into it, right? But at the same time, like it seems like that’s their sales pitch is fear.

Steve: Yeah.

Amber: And it, I don’t know if it works because it. I mean, based on this comment, I don’t think this person is going to go try and make their website accessible.

Steve: Well, I mean, I think, you know, I don’t think that the fear based marketing and accessibility is necessarily all bad. But I think what you’re offering as a solution to that fear based marketing matters, right?

You can’t offer them something that is a non fix, right? You make them think it’s fixed, but it’s not really fixed. And you’re kind of playing a, you’re playing a numbers game, right? They know that not everybody’s going to get sued, right? Like that maybe some people will get sued and that they will cover the cost of that suit, right?

Like it’s just a COG for them, a cost of doing business.

Amber: I mean, if they actually do, I’ve read a lot of things that say they, oh, well, actually, didn’t we talk about this in that podcast episode?

Chris: Yeah. This is why they were the subject of a class action suit, because their “help with lawsuit” promise was they they send you a PDF saying we checked our own work and we found that we’re fine.

Like that’s, it’s like they send you a PDF from their own scanner showing that their scanner fixed, air quotes, I’m doing air quotes for our listening audience, everything. And that’s the extent of the legal assistance you get other than a referral to their law firm who apparently charges 2-3x market rate for the services.

Steve: Right. And I think I think that the difference in, you know, a company like that and a company like, like, Equalize Digital is where we could kind of say, Hey, there’s a, you know, the European Accessibility Act is coming. You need to make your stuff accessible. If you come to us, we’re going to make our best effort to make sure it’s actually accessible at the source. We’re not just going to try to overlay something on top of it and say, there you go. If you get sued, then we’re, you know, we’re push the can down the road later on. Right. Like with some, Oh, it’s fine. You know…

Amber: If you look at our plugin on WordPress.Org repo in the FAQ sections or in the FAQ sections on our website, we’re very clear.

Like there’s one that says, does this make my website accessible? And it says, no! Our plugin can help you. It is part of the accessibility, like, process. But, no software can make something accessible. It takes a person. And so you need to, you know, I, and I do think AccessiBe might be starting to offer services now because they’re realizing this. Right?

But I mean, that’s something when I’ve talked to other agencies that are trying to figure out how to offer this and I say, you know, you just have to be really clear that on what level you’re promising, how you’re testing it, how you’re confirming it. And just slapping an overlay on a website is not going to do it.

Chris: I want to read Alex Stein’s comment because Alex went in and commented on this. And I think it’s relevant to what we were talking about, about, you know, being deceptive and marketing with fear. Alex wrote:

“Thank you so much for taking action against this corrupt organization, taking advantage of businesses that don’t know any better. I’m blind myself, and it means a lot that you are trying to put them in their place. False advertising should for sure not be allowed. I only wish the fine was bigger. I want them to feel the pain I feel daily when I encounter an accessibility overlay that makes my experience much worse than simply practicing good accessibility and following the standards.”

Amber: Yeah, and I, this goes a little bit to what you said, Steve, like you wish it was bigger. I actually looked at every comment. Again, there weren’t very many when I was doing this. Of the 25, 15 people said they didn’t think a million was enough.

There was one, let’s see one person. Yeah. Anonymous, they just said, “The fine is woefully inadequate. They have annual profits of fifty million dollars. They could just shrug it off as part of business costs. They make far more money through their deception and abuse than they lose from the fine. One million dollars is a token amount.”

And then there was another person, Donovan, who was looking just at theirs where they say it’s installed on 247,000 websites. So I don’t know how that compares to what BuiltWith told me, 74,000. Maybe they’re making a bigger number to like try and make themselves look better. Maybe that’s deceptive marketing , or maybe it is on that many, in which case the number is way higher. And so doing that math, like I was saying on the 490 a year, if they’re only on the lowest tier, which I’m sure many of them are not, they could be making in excess of 121 million on their widget alone, is what he pointed out.

They probably spend more than a million dollars on Google Ads every year.

Steve: Right. Well, I mean, , that’s like point two percent that they could actually refund off of that million dollars, like, it doesn’t go very far.

Chris: Yeah. It’s teeny tiny.

Amber: So we’re all going to go comment that we agree, it should be bigger?

Chris: Yeah, maybe what I was going to comment though, is one thing that these people are leaving out, they’re fixating on that million dollar number, which I agree is inadequate, but the there’s the second number too, which is for each future violation of this order, AccessiBe would pay in excess of fifty thousand dollars. So if they go and continue this, I can’t imagine a scenario in which, you know, that wouldn’t get very expensive very quickly if they don’t correct course. So maybe that’s the intent is there has to be some comeuppance upfront, but then the real punishment is you have to stop, otherwise you’re going to be out of business, basically.

Amber: Yeah. Do you think, so, so do you think if they changed their language and they did something similar to what we do, which is right, like the overlay is part of making your website accessible. Like they were more honest. Yeah. I don’t know if I actually agree it’s part of it, but okay, let’s, I’m thinking from their perspective, right?

This is part of the solution. Do you think that business owners will pay 490 a year for it still? Like, do they have to lie in order to get the revenue that they have?

Steve: I think what makes the sale is the claim that it’s a one click, set it, forget it solution. I think that’s what really buys people into this more than anything. And because we, like you said, you know, scanners can only find accurately what 30, you know, 30, 40 percent of issues, 20 percent of issues, right? Like it requires a human audit to, to get all the way to a hundred percent accessible and quite frankly, it requires ongoing human audits to, to ensure that stays that way.

I think there was a comment, on here that we have a final comment that kind of highlights that a little bit. Is this Elise Sanchez? Am I saying that right?

Amber: Maybe?

Steve: Maybe? It says: “The only way to fix problems on websites is to fix it at the source code. It doesn’t matter how much cosmetics you put on top, on the top layer. The foundation has to be fixed. My company considered using the quick fix solution, but decided against it. We did the more expensive slow option of fixing the accessibility of our portal, our web portal, one page at a time. It took about a year, but the fundamental problems are truly gone.”

She goes on that’s just the first half of it, but I think that underlines, you know, kind of what we’re saying that these tools can’t, they’re not a one click fix for…

Amber: I liked the analogy that she had though, to like weight loss.

Chris: Yeah, it’s really salient and relevant because maybe everybody’s dabbled with it or thought about it at some point in their personal lives. So I think it’s a really good comparison.

Yeah.

Steve: “You’ve got to be delusional to think there is a tool that can instantly fix all your problems. Just like with weight loss, diet and exercise are the key, not a magic pill. There is no pill for meeting WCAG 2.1, 2.2 AA. These programmers and marketers should know better. They are selling a magic pill that does not work.”

There you go.

What’s Next for Overlays, Our Predictions

Amber: Yeah, I thought that was a really good comment that kind of translates it all. But, you know, like, going back to this, like, is this the end of AccessiBe if they’re required, to be honest?

I don’t know that it is, because I think there are ways that they could, market it like, I’ve seen websites where they have font resizers or they have contrast toggles or whatever. I, now, I don’t know, are they paying 490, 500 a year for that? Maybe not, like maybe their pricing would need to adjust down.

But I do think there are people who are not developers and don’t know how to code those things that would buy that if they were just saying, Hey, we allow users to adjust your website to their preference. And they don’t promise, they don’t guarantee compliance with laws, they don’t guarantee you won’t get sued, they don’t guarantee it’s WCAG conformant. They just say, we offer a tool that allows users to customize your website.

I think people would still pay for it. I don’t know if the same number of people would pay for it.

Chris: I think far fewer would, but the reason I think far fewer would is just based on conversations I’ve had with small businesses who are low budget and some of whom who have come back to me after you know, rejecting our proposal for doing it the right way and said, Hey, just so you know, I went with UserWay or I went with AccessiBe and here’s my reasoning.

The reasoning often is that they personally don’t feel like they have a horse in this race. They want, from, in their mind, it is a box to check or a problem to solve, and they want to do it in the way that they perceive is both the cheapest and the fastest. Because they have a million other demands on their time and a million other concerns that probably are way higher than this one on their priority list as a small independent business owner.

And so I think if AccessiBe can no longer promise that they’re delivering, you know, that they’re checking the box cheaply and quickly, and they can’t say that anymore, I think that the overwhelming majority of the small businesses will gradually leave or decide it’s not worth it because it’s not actually protecting them.

But I think it’ll take, I think the timescale we’re talking about is probably years because of the number of subscribers they have. If it bleeds off, it’ll be a slow one.

Amber: Depending. Well, I mean, it does a little bit depend on the news and the media as well, right? You know, the thought that I had that was interesting about this, going back to that class action lawsuit we were talking about is, this is probably going to be used as evidence, in that lawsuit. And if I were working in AccessiBe, I could almost guarantee that having gotten this from the FTC, I would go to that class action and be like, let’s settle right now. I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe I’d have lawyers to be like, no, you can still win.

If it’s not in the media and it goes away, that’s what’s going to help them. But if the media picks up that they got fined, and there’s business owners suing them, other business owners are going to be like wait a minute, what am I paying for?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re right. I think it’s a snowball effect. I think it’s the snowball is picking up speed and it will continue. And that lawsuit, this lawsuit will be combined in the next lawsuit. Like…

Chris: And they’re targeting the market leader now, but I guarantee you other overlay companies of which there are many are going to be paying attention to this.

And we may see a shift in messaging and a shift in what they promise their tools do. And I don’t know, you know, maybe a net positive here because I don’t want this to all be negative, like overlay bashing and all of that, even though they’re often worthy of it because of their practices, but maybe a positive outcome of this is that they put more R&D and effort into making their tools actually serve that purpose.

And maybe their tools will get better with some additional effort, potentially. I mean, it’s a huge uphill battle. They’re not going to get anywhere near a hundred percent, but maybe they’ll move the needle a little, or maybe they’ll just remove features that sound good to business owners who buy their product, but don’t actually serve anyone and actually make it worse, for the people who are supposed to be using it. I don’t know.

Amber: You mean like the entire overlay?

Chris: Yeah.

Amber: So talking to the language shift, I do know from talking to a few people, like UserWay is one that in the last, like, two or three years put some effort into cleaning up their language. They, of course, have always offered services as well. It’s not like AccessiBe where they were like, Oh, darn, we need to offer services now.

Like, I think UserWay started with services and then added the overlay and they were like, the overlay is the solution. And then they dialed it back because of some of this. So I think you’re right. We’re going to see more of the overlays. I’m sure anyone who works at one of those companies saw this and is like, Ooh. We need to go check our marketing language right now.

Steve: Yeah, it’s funny. A lot of the legal stuff coming down is in regards to the marketing, not necessarily the technology, right?

Amber: I mean, I feel like all, we don’t have laws about the use of AI. It’s so new, right? But we have laws about consumer protection and honesty and transparency and marketing.

I mean, the thought that I had about this, that is interesting, that’s relevant to everyone, regardless of what you are, is, are you being honest about what your products and services can do? Because here’s someone who wasn’t, and are you following all the rules about attributions with affiliates? Cause I know they’ve also been cracking down on people who have affiliate links and they are the affiliate and get revenue and they don’t disclose that.

So that’s another thing that’s kind of like on the opposite end, right? Like if you’re the one linking over to AccessiBe and not saying, Hey, I’m an affiliate and they’re paying me for this. You might also get in trouble.

Web Agencies Who Recommend Overlays Need to Pivot

Chris: Yeah. Well, and that was the next thing I was going to, I was going to say that we hadn’t really considered in the conversation yet.

And I, we have like maybe five minutes left to talk about it is there, there is a big audience here, that I think is primarily responsible in a lot of ways for AccessiBe’s growth. Maybe not exclusively, but it’s agencies and freelancers who are in their partner programs who just recommend this hands down to everybody that they build for, or whose site they maintain where accessibility comes up into concern. They just have a canned response of use AccessiBe. It’s what we recommend.

Amber: Well, and they resell it. Like there are a lot that are resellers or they have an affiliate and they get like a percentage when someone buys off the, their link, right? And they, are they telling their customers that they do that?

Chris: Yeah. I mean, maybe they aren’t, but at the at the deeper level I think this really proves what a lot of us in the accessibility space have been saying for years, which is. Pardon my French, but this shit doesn’t work. And you’re recommending something to your customers that literally does not work and does not serve its purpose.

And I don’t know that you’re legally on the hook for that necessarily. But

Amber: I mean, ethically, I think you certainly are!

Chris: I’d be curious to hear y’all’s thoughts about that, if you have anything to add, like for the agencies of, in our audience, of which there are many and the freelancers who might come across this.

Steve: I mean, I might go, you know, maybe a step further and talk a little bit about, you know, the shadow that this cast over the accessibility industry as a whole, right? Like how, you know, a lot of our work at Equalize Digital is really around changing the hearts and minds of people more than the technology.

And you know, there’s certain subsets of, in technology that really are not receptive to accessibility. And and think that some of us are in this for monetary gain. Right? And companies like this absolutely are in it for monetary gain.

Amber: I think they give the rest of us a bad name, to be totally honest.

Like, like reading that comment from that business, it’s like, they are hounding me with calls and emails. And I’m like, well, of course people hate accessibility specialists if that’s their only experience with them. You’re going to try to scare me into paying you a lot of money?

Steve: Yeah. So it’s, so I think a lot of accessibility professionals would be just happy that the internet just all of a sudden became 100 percent accessible, right? Like, and maybe not overlay companies, but like, I think we would, and we would be.

Amber: I have pivoted my business so many times in the last 15 years. I’m not afraid. If accessibility stops mattering because everything is accessible, one, I’m going to go have a giant, I’m going to drive up to Dallas and I’m going to give Alex a hug and we’re going to go get drinks, right?

Like, like I’m, it’s going to be great. We’re going to celebrate and then I’m going to pivot my business and do something else and I’m, I’ll be fine.

Steve: There you go. Right. Mission accomplished. But I think it’s practices like this that really do kind of tarnish the name of accessibility companies that are out there actually trying to do good things.

Chris: Yeah.

Amber: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: Well, and you can do good and make money at the same time anyway, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re actually doing good. And that’s the component that they’re missing, is the doing good part.

Amber: I think the thing too, the thought that I had, Chris, to your question about like agencies and following up on this, like doing good and all that is we decided relatively early that we were not going to use affiliate links with our website development customers.

If we, because I felt pretty strongly that if I recommended something to them, I wanted it to be because it was truly the best solution for them and not cause I would get $25. Because really, when you think about building a website in the grand scheme of things, even if you, they bought like a bunch of things you recommended, what are you getting maximum, like $500 maybe?

I would just rather take whatever I think I can get off affiliate referrals and add that to the price of every website project and then never use affiliate links. And then my customers don’t have to question like, are you recommending this because it really is the best? Or are you recommending this because you’re going to get a kickback from the company?

And like, ethically as an agency owner, that is how we’ve decided, I’ve decided, we’ve decided as a team to approach things and I would really advise other agency owners to think about this. With AccessiBe or any overlay or any other WordPress plugin that you send, you know, or you recommend.

Now, we have some where we resell them, like, we’re going to build your, I mean, we have a few old websites that are built on Elementor and we told people you have a choice, you go buy your own Elementor license because you want an Elementor website or you can pay us and we maintain the license, you don’t have to deal with it, and they chose that, but they knew up front, right?

It’s very different from this kind of slimy, like, I’m not telling people. Kind of thing. I don’t know.

Chris: And after Amber’s advice, if you want to be removed from our affiliate program, contact me and I’ll…

Amber: Yes. Oh, wait a minute. What am I just advising people to do, right?

Steve: We don’t have, we don’t have the false, the deceptive marketing practice.

Amber: No, yeah. If anyone’s in our affiliate program, I would 100 percent encourage you to tell people that it’s an affiliate link because that is what you’re required to do by law.

In many countries, not just the United States. So you should tell people you get to make money. Or you can, instead of being an affiliate, you could always get an agency plan and give out licenses for free to your customers. “Free” when they pay for your services.

Yeah they think it’s free, but you’re billing them somehow more. But anyway, yeah, no I think it will be very interesting. I had originally wanted us to like, talk about, what our predictions for 2025 are. And then we keep having things that come up that are timely. So I don’t know, maybe in like March, we’ll talk about predictions for 2025, but I will say like the beginning of this year is shaping up very interesting in the accessibility and WordPress world.

So we’re probably going to have some more very interesting conversations about that in the near future.

Chris: It feels like it’s going to be the year of big headlines, y’all.

Steve: There you go.

Amber: All right. Well, thanks for tuning in and we’ll be back in two weeks for another great conversation and craft beer.

Chris: Cheers.

Steve: All right. Cheers.

Chris: Thanks for listening to Accessibility Craft. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe in your podcast app to get notified when future episodes release. You can find Accessibility Craft on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. And if building accessibility awareness is important to you, please consider rating Accessibility Craft 5 stars on Apple Podcasts.

Accessibility Craft is produced by Equalize Digital, and hosted by Amber Hinds, Chris Hinds, and Steve Jones. Steve Jones composed our theme music. Learn how we help make thousands of WordPress websites more accessible at EqualizeDigital.Com.