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As a website owner, the last thing you want is to find out the hard way that you have been operating on the wrong side of the law.

Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you must 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. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws has ramifications for several business categories, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed into various advertising and online marketing networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website are required to comply with certain legalities according to laws that govern your business, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be using online, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based in.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

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

• A customer has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an adverse reaction.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone copies content from your site and publishes it on their website.
• There is no statement on your website letting your site users know that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling and will earn a sales commission if visitors buy via your link.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are all fake and decide to sue you as a result.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult information and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too 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. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• 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, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had breached 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% 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 with warnings or lose access entirely 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 be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

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

Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will interact with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products or service. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your websites using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell products online via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and disclosures on your site, especially if you plan to sell products online with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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.

A number of online business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide references and links to useful resources to some of these at the end of this article …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create apps for your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• 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 avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Website

If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following legal pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of the following pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides general information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you are not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Discloses to your visitors that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Informs users that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with 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 Site

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

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

We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

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

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer here:

• How To Use Widgets In WordPress

Templates

You can find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more information, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to purchase a package of website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

For more details, go here:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

As well as using copy & paste legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.

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

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

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

• Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to 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 checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks when the user agrees to your terms.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WP 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 about the benefits of using this handy plugin, visit this website:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal pages for your digital business …

For an in-depth article about this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 & 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your site 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 ready-made legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, 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), it’s important that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party products and services that you may be promoting or advertising online. Your digital presence must comply with a number of regulations, many of which you may not even be aware of.

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 cannot provide legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

Resources

Below is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your site 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
• Better Business Bureau Website
• 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

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
• Google 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using simple resources and solutions.

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