Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are promoting or advertising?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at such a fast pace and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s absolutely vital to try and stay informed about what’s happening and make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having a digital presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online for information about “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)
These laws has legal implications for several business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (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 won’t allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed into various advertising or online marketing networks.
If you are not in compliance, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website are required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be using online, and that there are solutions for WordPress users that can help your sites become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose services or products you use on your website
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to happen:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with it.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
- You did not tell your site users that you are an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you will earn a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- A visitor claims that the testimonials on your site are false and tries to sue you because of it.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider too these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — 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 details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars 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% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming a target of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website is fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will engage with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their services and features. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your site with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your products through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell digital products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your site, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners 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 located in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.
You can find many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the 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)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you are planning to create apps that will integrate with your website, social networking 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 unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
Basic Legal Pages To Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of these legal pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides financial information)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the right disclosures to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you will not receive for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs visitors that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to your readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets site users know that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal content 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 legal folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then add links to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) so that users can access the information from all pages …
(It’s important to display legal information to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this tutorial:
Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and website forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More information:
Another option is to download a package of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described previously.
Go here for more details:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress-driven websites worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When a user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your dashboard section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
Choose from various pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages – Built-In 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
To learn more about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Learn more about the plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro 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 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.
For more information, go here:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal page templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, you need to make sure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.
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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
In Addition …
- 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
- Google 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 above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)