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Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you offer or recommend?

As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s absolutely vital to stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having an online presence plays an important part in your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “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 new laws affect several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, like Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and provides simple and cost-effective methods and solutions that will help make your website compliant.

Is Your Website Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws wherever you do business.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with the information you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and may derive an affiliate commission if they purchase through your link.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund or return policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are false and decide to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your site includes adult content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider now these real 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. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• 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 private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ 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 breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being exposed to litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s imperative to make sure that your website complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

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

You are expected to let your site users know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with.

For example:

Google requires you to display legal information when using their services. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your sites with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products using places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

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 will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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 is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

Various sites provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide references and links to resources to a number of these at the end of this article …

(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you plan to create applications that integrate with your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about various 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 companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Compliance Information Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?

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 compliance pages to your site will keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

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

As well as the above pages, you may want to consider adding one or more of the pages listed below if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general health or medical content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you will not receive for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Disclosure that informs users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to readers that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs 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.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually

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

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

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar (or the footer of your website) to ensure that users will be able to access the information from every web page …

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

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

• Using WordPress Widgets

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.

Here are some great WordPress plugins you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If the idea of creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

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

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

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to 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 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. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your site.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks when user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear inside your dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)

With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 to learn more this useful plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

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 of Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro – 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 this plugin on all of your sites.

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal templates, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do any kind of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or use 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, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires 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
• BBB – 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

Plus …

• 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 legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website using simple solutions.

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