Author: WP Compendium

As a website owner, you do not want to find out that you have been breaking rules or regulations.

Internet laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not protect someone from taking legal action against your business.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also referred to as the BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

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

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

• Any kind of advertising, including PPC advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not let you list digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a range of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

If you are not in compliance, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website or blog may be required to comply with certain legalities according to laws that govern online business practices, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be recommending online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements regarding your specific business.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if these situations were to happen:

• A customer has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing and could derive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase products using your affiliate link.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Someone claims that your testimonials are false and decides to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $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 Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 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 risk being a target of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site visitors.

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

Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their services or features. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue online with your websites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell products online using companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to and additional references to some of these at the end of this article …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create social networking applications for your site users, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or using Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

What Compliance Information Pages Should You Add To Your Site To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your website lacks in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to look into adding one or more of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your website. For example:

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

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

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

(Display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Sidebar

Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted website forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to purchase a package of legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms)

Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

The legal forms 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.
• 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 pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.

Go here for more details:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things by using a plugin.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you a great deal of time.

Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks when user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your main dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)

Select from various pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – 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

To learn more this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your digital presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 And Conditions
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress – 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 site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your website to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with all government regulations and the guidelines and terms of service provided by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your internet presence must comply with a wide range of regulations, many of which you may not 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, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Additional Information

Here is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet its legal obligations:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB
• 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
• US Copyright Office

See Also …

• Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• Google 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and cost-effective resources and solutions.

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