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One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws were designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website 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 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws has legal implications for various online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, like Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial 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 for sale, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

Additionally, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website or blog(s) are required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be recommending on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As stated earlier, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you promote

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider what would happen to your business if the following situations were to occur:

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you are an affiliate for the product you are selling and may get paid financial benefits if they buy via your link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are misleading and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider also these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction 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 details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program 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 risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdWords User
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations 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 must let your site users know that your website complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their services and features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your blogs with Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information-based products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell or promote products online using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses 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 happened in the past, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

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

You can find many online business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you are planning to create applications for your site users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site using 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 to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

What Legal Information Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Compliant?

If your web site falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid possible 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

Additionally, you may want to consider including any of these pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users be aware that you will not receive compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs visitors that you will receive compensation if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Informs your visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Informs users 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 comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages To Your Website

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

We recommend creating a legals folder on your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …

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

You can then easily add links to your legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from every web page …

(It’s important to display links to your legal information to users on all of your website’s pages)

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

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Sidebar Area

Using Store-Bought Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here for more information:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These 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 insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
• 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 page on your website for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as described previously.

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using cut & paste templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

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

Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your main navigation menu …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – 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

For more details about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over 20 customizable compliance templates for your digital business …

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 Use
• 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.

For more information, visit this site:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring 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.

We want your website 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 attorney-written legal forms, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and any terms of service and guidelines required by 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or using online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Additional Information

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant 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

Plus …

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

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