Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
Internet laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t excuse someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws has ramifications for various online business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
Without legal pages on your web site (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 or JVZoo won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
In addition, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective legal resources and solutions.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As stated earlier, the aim of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you use
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be if these situations were to take place:
- A user has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
- You haven’t informed visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and could receive financial benefits if they purchase it.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
- Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are fake and tries to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website publishes adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider now these documented 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 (including credit card details to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue 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 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 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 infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 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?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies
All the leading companies and government agencies that regulate trade in many countries emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their products and features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell digital products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages to your website before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell online with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically 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 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 making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
There are many sites that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance
If you plan to develop apps for your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online 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 are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have 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 litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)
Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Website
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help you stay out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets site users know that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies users that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users that you were 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 show 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 these have been completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal verbiage 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 adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then easily add links to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) so that users can access legal information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal pages to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer in WordPress using widgets here:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted website forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
To learn more, go here:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal 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
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service & 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 website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described earlier.
Go here for more information:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
As well as using cut & paste templates, another option is to use a plugin.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-powered websites worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely 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 every other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main navigation area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)
Choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress 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
For more details about using this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin website:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 of Service
- 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. Your legal pages can be 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 sites.
Go here to learn more:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a legal expert.
We want your business to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal forms, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, 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 make sure that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
Additional Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet its legal obligations:
- 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
- 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
- United States Copyright Office
Additionally …
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site using simple resources and plugins.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now