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Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are offering or promoting?

As the digital way of life continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is an integral part of your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, 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)

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

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

Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you won’t be accepted into various advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

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

The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your site(s) are required to comply with various legalities, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be recommending on your site, and that there are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Is Your Website Breaking The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you promote on your website or blog

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider what could happen to your business if these situations were to happen:

• A customer has a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you will do with it.
• Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website letting visitors know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and will get paid a financial benefit if visitors buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are all fake and decides to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy in a product review.
• Your site contains adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider too these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered 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 without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes 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 independent 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 infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a business owner can easily become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

You need to ensure that your website or blog remains fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your site visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will engage with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue online with your blog with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their marketplace …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts 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 money-making activity 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 interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.

Various sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you plan to create applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether you may be 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 on your site via affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or use 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 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, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

What Compliance Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms & Conditions
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above, you may want to look into adding one or more of these pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides advice about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets users know that you are not receiving any kind of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your readers that you may derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs site users that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your 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 online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website

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

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

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 legals folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors can access the information from every web page …

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

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

• Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar Navigation Section

Use Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

To learn more, visit this site:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of cut & paste website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service (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 on your website for every legal form you want added 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:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

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

Here are some great plugins for WordPress-powered websites you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

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

Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to 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 a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you 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 lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

You can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)

Choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WP 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 about this useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …

Go here to learn more:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro 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 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 powered 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 this plugin on all of your websites.

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or offering online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole range 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 do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Legal Information

Here is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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 – BBB
• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website.

***