IBO or "ABO"
In the course of Amway's near death experience in the United Kingdom, Amway replaced the term  "Independent Business Owner" (IBO) with "Amway Business Owner" (ABO).   In September 2007 I first saw the term "Amway Business Operator" on the Amway Blog.   I was amazed they made the quiet change and the admission that their distributors were not "independent business owners" after all.   I guess that was because Amway knows they can pull the rug out from beneath you and your "independent" business at anytime they wish, as is exactly what happened in the UK market.

Even back in 2005 I said that the term "IBO" was an Oxymoron and deceptive at best.  Amway distributors are far from independent for a number of reasons outlined in the page I wrote.  It was recently proven in practice by Amway's desperate attempt to save it self from the regulators in the UK.  

Amway must have secretly made the admission to themselves to have gone so far as to coin a new term for use in the United Kingdom.   No longer are there Independent Business Owners in the UK, but, they are in fact Amway Business Owners.   Of course the critics have known this all along. 

So now the big question is, with Amway's dumping of the Quixtar brand and going back to the Amway brand in North American, when will Amway and the IBOA admit the truth that the term "Independent Business Owner" is deceptive and misleading?   Maybe IBOA with its high ethical standards will lead the charge and change their name back to the "Amway Distributors' Association"....ya and maybe pigs will fly too!    

In my opinion, Amway  needed to change the obviously deceptive "IBO" term in United Kingdom in order to win the favor of Judge Norris to keep from him shutting them down.   At least with this token example Amway could show they were being up-front by eliminating obvious deceptive terminology such as "IBO".    

Now ask yourself if Amway did believe that an Amway distributor was in fact a truly independent entity, why then did they change the name from "Independent Business Owner" to "Amway Business Owner"?   What is the difference between a Amway distributor in the UK and an Amway distributor in North American that makes one  an "independent business operator" and yet the other an "Amway business operator"?  Why have an honest term in one market and a yet continue to use a deceptive term in another market?  Are the Americans more gullible than the people in the UK?

No doubt they did the right thing in the UK by eliminating the deceptive term "Independent Business Owner".  When will they do the right thing and eliminate this deceptive term in North America?

Quixtar has finally admitted it was Amway all along by changing the name back to Amway, so they might was well do the right thing and stop using the IBO term as North America well.   All of the distributors who were going to quite over the change back to the Amway name have already quit, so doing the right thing here should not cost them any more non-renewals.