Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are doing business with?
Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)
The introduction of new laws has consequences for various business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your online business is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with various legalities according to laws that govern your business, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be recommending on your site, and that there are solutions that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if these situations were to happen:
- A customer suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website letting your visitors know that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and could receive a commission if visitors buy it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your return policies.
- Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you as a result.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider also the following documented examples 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 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, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 entirely to the Google program with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to become exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s imperative to ensure that your website stays legally compliant.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You must let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information when using their services or product features. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your blog with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially if you plan to sell or promote products with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies 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 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 site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations and guidelines.
There are many online resources that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create applications that will integrate with your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations 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 make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?
If your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help your website keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- 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 (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets readers be aware that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs users that you may derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets users know that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know 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 To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory on your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your site) to ensure that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(Display links to legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More info:
Alternatively, you can download a package of website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal pages 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 pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your server as described previously.
For more information, go here:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option is to use a plugin.
Here are some plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing WP Legal Pages …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the work 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 reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page 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 a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your main WordPress dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)
Select from various built-in legal templates …
(WP 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
To learn more about using this powerful plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Visit this site to learn more:
If hiring lawyers to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some form of basic legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a legal expert.
We want your website to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documents, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to ensure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or use online. Your website must comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.
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 are not providing legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Additional Legal Information
Below is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
Also …
- 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 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 add all necessary legal pages to your site using simple solutions.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum