Author: WP Compendium

One of the worst predicaments a website owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As digital business continues to grow at such a fast pace and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s absolutely vital to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is a fundamental factor in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)

The introduction of these laws affect various business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, including Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising and online marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your site(s) may be required to comply with various legalities in accordance with the laws that govern online businesses, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be endorsing on your site, and that there are solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws in your country or region.

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• Someone suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog telling your visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing and could get paid an affiliate commission if visitors end up purchasing via your link.
• You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are false and decides to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your site publishes adult content and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider now the following documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed at least 3 of Google’s policies. Although the website owners could technically be sued by Google, more than likely what could happen, is that they would be issued notices or lose access entirely to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to all site users.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue online with your websites using Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell digital products with companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before your products can be approved for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

A number of online resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide references to some of these at the end of this article …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you plan to create applications that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Apps for social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

What Legal Information Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?

If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you will not receive for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Informs users that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Explains to users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)

You can then add a link to your pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) so that users have access to legal information from every page …

(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)

We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer menu using widgets here:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Blog Sidebar Section

Using Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Visit this site for more details:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.

For more information, go here:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.

Here are some plugins for WordPress-driven sites that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing WP Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.

Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your navigation menu section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site dropdown menu)

Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In Templates)

Legal page templates include:

• Terms of Use (Users are forced to agree to Terms and Conditions before using site)
• Linking Policy
• External Links Policy
• Terms and Conditions
• Refund Policy
• Affiliate Disclosure
• Privacy Policy
• Affiliate Agreement
• Facebook Privacy Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• Antispam Policy
• DoubleClick DART Cookies Policy
• Disclaimer Template
• FTC Disclosure Statement Template
• Medical Disclaimer Template
• Testimonials Disclosure – As per FTC guidelines
• Amazon Affiliate Disclosure Template
• DMCA Policy Template
• California Privacy Rights Policy Template
• Digital Goods Refund Policy Template
• COPPA – Children’s Online Privacy Policy Template
• Blog Comments Policy Template
• Newsletter Subscription Policy and Disclaimer Template
• FTC Disclaimer Widget

Visit the plugin website to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable legal templates for your web presence …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

This plugin lets you easily install professionally-written legal pages such as:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• Social Media Disclosure
• Medical Disclaimer
• Terms of Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin – Professionally-written legal forms)

Additionally:

• Drag & Drop FTC Disclaimer Widget: Add an FTC Disclaimer to any WordPress sidebar or widget area.
• Customizable EU Cookie Compliance Bar: Display an EU cookie compliance bar if you are getting traffic from the EU and your sites use cookies.

With just one-click you can install almost all of the legal pages your site needs and these professionally written legal pages can be created in your theme and/or as a standalone page outside of your theme.

The plugin developers secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a lawyer.

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do any kind of business online, you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with government regulations and the guidelines and terms of service for third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your internet presence must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.

Non-compliance puts you at risk of suffering both financial losses and the loss of your reputation. Why risk your money and reputation, when you can protect yourself so inexpensively?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program
• Dot Com Disclosures: Information About Online Advertising
• Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act
• CAN-SPAM Act Guide
• Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule
• FTC Regulatory Review Web Page
• FTC Rules and Guides Currently Under Review
• The Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force – Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework
• FTC Staff Report: Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising
• FTC Final Guides Governing Endorsements and Testimonials
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

Also …

• Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• AdSense Help – Required Content
• Google AdWords – Information Collection And Use
• AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
• ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
• Facebook Platform Policies

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site using simple methods and resources.

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