As a website owner, the last thing you want is to find yourself breaking laws, rules or regulations.
As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you try to stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant part in your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, 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 to learn more.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of these laws affect various online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. display advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you will not be allowed into most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website are subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be recommending on your site, and that there are easy solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the tools listed further below.
Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider for a moment what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you plan to do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site letting visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you will derive financial benefits if visitors purchase it.
- You did not spell out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- Visitors claim the testimonials on your site are misleading and try to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy in your product review.
- Your website publishes adult-related content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider also these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to give everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 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 risk becoming targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website is fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
All of the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade in many countries emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you interact with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information when using their products. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your websites using Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their network …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially when concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Various sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to develop applications for your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to your legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you’ve been wondering 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, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website falls short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides content about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms (if you provide users with access to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users be aware that you will receive compensation if they buy through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets users 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 Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal verbiage 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 folder to your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from all your pages …
(It’s important to display legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer in WordPress using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here to learn more:
Another option is to purchase a package of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates FTC regulations brought into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.
More information:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any page on your site.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, review websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)
Choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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
To learn more about using this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites containing over 20 customizable legal pages for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro)
Legal Suite Pro 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 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 the plugin on all of your sites.
For more details, go here:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a legal expert.
We want your business to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal documents, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As stated earlier, if you do business online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service required by third-party sites that you may be promoting or selling online. Your internet presence must comply with numerous regulations, some 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 on our website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Resources
Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau – 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
Additionally …
- 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum