Is your website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you do business with?
As the digital economy continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and make sure that your site remains legal, especially if having a digital presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
New 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 need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The introduction of new laws affect several online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If you do not include certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in a number of advertising and online marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) are subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be endorsing on your site, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the tools listed further below.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated above, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you recommend
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider what would happen to your business if the following scenarios were to take place:
- Someone suffers a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone an adverse reaction.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting your visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing and will earn a sales commission if visitors buy via your link.
- You have not spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
- Your visitors claim your testimonials are fake and try to sue you.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site publishes adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider also the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk 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 randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 notices or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could become exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
it’s important to make sure that your online business stays legally compliant.
Complying With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
All of the leading online companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you interact with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information if using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue with your blogs using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense policy requirements)
And even promoting your services or products via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online with merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …
(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, 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 plan to 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 site is compliant with FTC regulations.
Various sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create applications that integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
- 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)
Basic Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should help you keep out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider adding any of the pages listed below where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets readers be aware that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to users that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate link.
- Sample/Review Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to users 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage 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 server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website) so that users can access the information from all of your pages …
(Display links to your legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this tutorial:
Use Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
More information:
Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms)
These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates 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 new Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new WordPress 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 described earlier.
More information:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your 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 any other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings)
You can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)
Choose from various pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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
Visit the plugin site to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro)
This 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 Use
- 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 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. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more info:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some form of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.
We want your business to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal content, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, 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 site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and any guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
Additional Legal Information
Below is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau
- 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
Plus …
- Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- 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 the importance of having a legally 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)