Is your website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you do business with?
As the internet continues growing at such a fast pace and rules keep changing, it’s vital that you try to stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence plays a significant role in your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The new laws has ramifications for several online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in various advertising or online marketing networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this article, we discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and describe simple and inexpensive methods and solutions that will help make your site compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. As previously stated, the aim of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you recommend
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider for a moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not defined what you’ll do with it.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your site letting visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are endorsing and could earn an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
- You did not spell out the conditions of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult-related information and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider now the actual examples of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of at least three 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 to the Google program whose policies with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming targeted for litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to ensure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and information accessible to your site visitors.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using their services and features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your WordPress blog with Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.
There are many sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See our additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Compliance Information Pages Should I Add To My Site To Be Compliant?
If your website falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of the following pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your readers know that you are not receiving compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you will benefit financially if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Informs your readers that you have received a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
- 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Content To Your Site
Ideally, you should consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal content for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legals folder in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar menu (or the footer of your website or blog) so that visitors will be able to access legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar or footer here:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)
To learn more, visit this site:
Another option is to download a set of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described earlier.
More information:
WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using cut & paste templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your navigation section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
Select from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured Legal 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
For more details about using this plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable legal page templates for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 – 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
To learn more, go here:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of basic legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a solicitor.
We want your business to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any type of business online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or using online. Your website must comply with a whole set of regulations, many of which you may not even be aware of.
Being non-compliant 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Additional Information
Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau Website
- 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
And …
- 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
We hope this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum