Scorecard · No. 04 / 17
Which failures should stop approval before scoring?
Last updated
Apply these gates before considering the weighted total. Mark each Pass, Pending or Fail. Pending means “do not approve the affected work yet”, not “assume the supplier is unsuitable”.
| Mandatory gate | Pass evidence | Stop or pause condition |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Honest scope and claims | Written distinction between monitoring, implementation and validation; limitations attached to performance claims | Guaranteed recommendations, permanent inclusion, fabricated results or unsupported claims of privileged ranking access |
| 2. Acceptable collection and data handling | Collection route disclosed per surface; relevant contractual basis and security review completed | Supplier will not explain access arrangements, subprocessors or treatment of confidential inputs |
| 3. Inspectable evidence | Buyer can inspect a sample of complete answers, prompts, timestamps, source URLs and classifications; usable export agreed | Scores cannot be traced to observations, or evidence disappears at cancellation |
| 4. Ethical implementation | Written prohibition on fabricated reviews, undisclosed promotional identities and deceptive source manipulation | The plan depends on fake endorsements, impersonation or promotion presented as independent evidence |
| 5. Operational ownership | Named buyer and supplier owners; capacity, approvals and acceptance tests agreed | No one can publish fixes, review product claims or act on findings |
| 6. Comparable evaluation | Baseline, prompt versions, metrics and intervention dates preserved | Supplier may change the test set or denominator without disclosure and still claim improvement |
These gates have distinct foundations. Google warns that third-party tools cannot guarantee performance or access its internal ranking data. OpenAI’s consumer terms prohibit automated extraction of data or output, while separately identifying business terms for business and API services. A browser-collection claim is therefore not sufficient evidence of permission; equally, this document does not establish that any named vendor lacks permission. Ask counsel to review the actual arrangements. (developers.google.com)
For US marketing work, the FTC’s advertising-substantiation policy requires a reasonable basis for objective claims before dissemination. Its reviews guidance addresses fake reviews, sentiment-conditioned incentives and relevant disclosures. Apply these requirements to the proposed conduct, with legal review where necessary—not as a blanket claim that all paid promotion is prohibited. (ftc.gov)
Sources cited on this page
- developers.google.com developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/third-party-seo
- ftc.gov www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/ftc-policy-statement-regarding-advertising-subs