Author: WP Compendium

As a website owner, the last thing you want to do is to learn the hard way that you are doing something illegal.

Online laws and regulations were designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) 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.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

These laws affect several business activities, including:

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

If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject your applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising and affiliate marketing 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!

In this guide, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. As stated earlier, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you advertise on your website

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Consider for a moment what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you’ll do with it.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
• You have not divulged to your visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and may get paid an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your refund or return policies.
• A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also the following actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to give 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 children’s private details.
• 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 dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had broken 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% were breaking 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 they had infringed, 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:

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

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog remains fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services

Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.

For example:

Google requires websites to display certain information if using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your website using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell digital products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for selling via their networks …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for sellers)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures on your site, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of money-making activity 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 and regulations.

There are many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you plan to develop applications for your site users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to various legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your website is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us Page
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to look into implementing any of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right type of content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you are not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you may benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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.

Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Site

Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page format (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 HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert these into your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that users will be able to access the information from every page …

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

For a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer in WordPress using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Blog

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

To learn more, visit this site:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut & paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(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 quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates FTC guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

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

Visit this site for more information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

As well as using templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you loads of headaches.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by 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 fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WP page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will be added to your dashboard section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

You can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Select from various built-in legal templates …

(WordPress 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

To learn more this plugin, visit this site:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over twenty customizable legal templates for your web presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(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 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. 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 this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

For more details, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to 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 engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.

References And Resources

Below is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to comply and meet legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission 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

Also …

• 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 compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple solutions.

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