Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you advertise or promote?
Online laws and regulations are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets 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 someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent 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 profit, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). 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 affect various online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. contextual advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages (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, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be advertising on your site, and that there are solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tools listed further below.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations governing your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you use on your website or blog
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider for a minute what could happen to your business if any of these scenarios were to take place:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not defined what you’ll do with it.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you will earn a commission if visitors purchase it.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you.
- You have not disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider also these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 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 through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s vitally important to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information displayed to all you site users.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your visitors know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you do business with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information when using their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue with your website using Google AdSense display advertising …
(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your business using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell digital products with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …
(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you 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 Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to create social networking applications for your site users, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)
What Compliance Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Compliant?
If your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your business stay out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-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 And Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into adding one or more of these compliance pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides content about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your visitors be aware that you are not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they purchase through your affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Explains to your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder 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 custom links in your menu feature …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors 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)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
For more details, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a package of cut and paste legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & 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 pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.
More information:
Legal Pages – Plugins
As well as using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some WordPress plugins you should check out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you loads of headaches.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal 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.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely 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 any other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks when users agree to your legal terms.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your WordPress dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)
Choose from various pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
Visit the plugin site to learn more about the benefits of using this useful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites that contains over twenty customizable compliance pages for your online presence …
Learn We have written a detailed article about this plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro)
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 – 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. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute 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).
For more information, go here:
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 kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal content, or a plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or advertising online. Your website or blog must comply with numerous regulations, 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet 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
And …
- 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
- 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 provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.
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