Category: Website Planning

Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you sell or recommend?

Online laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection 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 for more details.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The introduction of these new laws has legal consequences for several business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, e.g. text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in a number of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

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

This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and presents inexpensive methods to make your site compliant in minutes.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you offer

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the scenarios below were to occur:

• A person has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an adverse reaction.
• You’ve told subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing that you will get paid a commission if visitors purchase using your affiliate link.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy of a product you reviewed.
• Your site contains adult-related information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider too the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches described:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up 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 from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being targeted for litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s vitally important to ensure that your website remains legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are expected to let your site users know that your business complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will interact with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your online properties using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell products online via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of money-making activity 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 interests by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC regulations.

There are many online resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to develop apps for your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you are 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 plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required 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, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

What Compliance Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help your site stay out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing any of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you will not receive for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you may be compensated if they buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to site users that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets site users know that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users 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.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Website

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

Upload 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 server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legals directory on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) so that users have access to the information from every page …

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

If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In Your Blog

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more details, go here:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your 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
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – Plugins

As well as using cut & paste legal templates, you can simplify things using a plugin.

Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.

Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when the user agrees to your terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site drop down menu)

Select from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress 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

Go here to learn more this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

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

Learn We have written an in-depth article about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 of Use
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin – 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. Your legal pages can be 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 websites.

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your website 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 ready-made legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic 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 business online, it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines required by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website or blog must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of additional 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
• Federal Trade Commission 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

Plus …

• 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
• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website using inexpensive resources and solutions.

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