Author: WP Compendium

If you do any kind of business online, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

As the internet continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to try and stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence plays a significant role in your overall business strategy.

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 profit, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. 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 new laws has implications for various business activities, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote various advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be required to comply with certain legalities, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be advertising online, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become fully compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As stated above, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you advertise

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• 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 plan to do with the details you have collected.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their own website.
• You haven’t informed your site visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling and will get paid a sales commission if visitors purchase via your link.
• You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you because of it.
• You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
• Your website includes adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet 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 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 with warnings 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 you could be exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

All the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will interact with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information when using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products with companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add certain legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product vendors)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be 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 flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.

You can find 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 references to a number of these at the end of this article …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to develop apps for your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure 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 are considering promoting services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your site 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 - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

What Compliance Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Compliant?

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

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

As well as the above, you may want to consider including any of the following pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors know that you will not receive any kind of payment for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you will benefit financially if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to site users that you have received a sample or review copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Website

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legal folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

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

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer using widgets here:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Website

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

More information:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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 server as previously described.

For more information, go here:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some great plugins for WordPress sites worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your main navigation area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type dropdown menu)

You can also select from a number of pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Go here for more information about using this useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your site …

Learn more here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 & 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 very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your business to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily 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 make money online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site is compliant with all legal requirements and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party services and products that you may be promoting or advertising online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.

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 cannot offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law regarding your specific business.

Additional Information

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

• 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
• United States Copyright Office

And …

• 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 and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using simple methods, resources and plugins.

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