[Updated with details from news conference and comment from Intelius] The Washington Attorney General's Office has settled a legal dispute with Intelius involving allegations of deceptive marketing tactics, with the Bellevue company agreeing to pay $1.3 million as part of a consent decree. The settlement was announced Tuesday afternoon by Attorney General Rob McKenna.

The case is part of a broader effort to crack down on "post-transaction marketing" tactics, in which people who sign up for online services are unwittingly lured into adding additional premium services to their accounts, over and above the original payment. The settlement includes a series of injunctions meant to prevent Intelius from engaging in such activities.

"Intelius chose cash over candor," McKenna said, referring to the company's past activities during a news conference announcing the deal in Seattle this afternoon.

In a statement issued today, Intelius said it was pleased with the settlement and was ready to move on.

Intelius is pleased to announce our agreement with the Washington State Attorney General. We will comply with the Consent Decree and are happy to put this issue behind us so we can focus on providing great products and services to our customers in Washington and around the country. Intelius is a leader in providing information services to consumers and businesses. Over 10 million customers have benefited from our great service, and we are committed to providing unparalleled service to our customers. Our A- Better Business Bureau rating, prompt customer service provided by the great people of Washington State, and our Customer Bill of Rights all demonstrate our promise to our customers.

The language of the injunction says that certain online offers made by Intelius must, among other things, require the consumer to provide complete account information at the time the offer is accepted; fully disclose the name of the entity making the offer; disclose "clearly and conspicuously" all material terms of the offer; and not make material disclosures in fine print or in text that's only accessible by clicking a link.

During its two year investigation, The Washington Attorney General's Office received more than 400 complaints about Intelius.

[Update: Here's the text of the consent decree: PDF, 14 pages. And here's the full complaint: PDF, 40 pages]

In general, McKenna said, "post-transaction marketing plunges you into an online labyrinth where the only way out is to click and click and click. One wrong turn and you're enrolled in a membership program that costs you $20 or more each month. And you'll never know until you scrutinize your credit card bill."

The Washington attorney general has been pursuing post-transaction marketing tactics for months, testifying in front of a U.S. Senate hearing on "Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and Their Impact on American Consumers" last November. At the time, McKenna argued that Washington residents had lost an estimated $50 million over the past four years.

"Certain sellers and marketers have been interrupting consumers’ online transactions by making offers that appear to relate to the consumers’ transaction, but, in fact, do not," McKenna said at the time without referring directly to Intelius. "The marketing offers instead involve a subscription to an unrelated membership program that is billed on a recurring basis."

When the report was released in November, Intelius said that it was looking into the situation and reducing its reliance on Vertrue's Adaptive Marketing, one of the marketing firms at the center of the controversy, and studying the findings of the U.S. Senate committee.

Christopher Welch, an investigator in the consumer protection division of the Attorney General's Office, said that Intelius severed its relationship with Adaptive Marketing last December.

According to the complaint, Intelius earned more than $35 million through its partnership with Adaptive between 2007 and 2008. And from July 2007 to July 2008, nearly 19,000 Washington residents enrolled in Adaptive Marketing programs via Intelius. Nationwide, Intelius enrolled 648,860 consumers in the Adaptive program during a 12-month period from October 2008 to October 2009.

In addition to the programs with Adaptive Marketing, Intelius began offering its own membership program in April 2008 called Identity Protect. The Attorney General's office alleged that the "bundled" marketing offers tied to Identity Protect were equally confusing to consumers. During the first year of operation, more than 800,000 consumers signed up for the service. But only 54,181 took advantage of the membership benefits of the product.

As part of the settlement, Intelius must send a postcard and e-mail message to all Washington consumers who were enrolled in Identity Protect before August 12, 2009. It also must establish a Web site -- tentatively slated for www.intelliusrefundprograms.com -- which makes it simple for consumers to make a claim for a refund.

Intelius, which provides consumers with online background checks, has been the subject of class action lawsuits. Last October, for example, it was accused of violating Washington state's Consumer Protection Act for perpetuating misleading sign-up messages on its Web site. The messages allegedly led consumers to unknowingly receive credit card charges on their statements from a third-party partner by the name of Adaptive Marketing.

Founded in 2003 by former InfoSpace CEO Naveen Jain, Intelius currently has documents on file with the SEC to go public. The company -- which has reportedly ended its relationship with Adaptive Marketing -- reported a net loss of $2.5 million for the first six months of 2009. That compared to net income of $10.9 million for the same period in 2008. Revenues increased during that period to $74 million, according to the SEC filing.

Another Seattle-area website, Classmates.com, also was singled out in the Senate report for its tactics, and has since seen its revenue take a hit as a result of ending its relationship with post-transaction marketing firms.

Related: "Video: Rob McKenna explains how Intelius tricked consumers"