Category: Website Planning

If you plan to grow a successful business online, you do not want to find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital realm continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your online presence plays a significant role in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, 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. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)

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

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. display advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a number of advertising and online marketing networks.

If your online business is not compliant, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog may be subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online businesses, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be offering on your site, and that there are solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws wherever your business is based.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A person suffers a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site letting visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you will derive a sales commission if they buy it.
• You did not spell out the terms of your refund and return policies.
• Online visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy of the product you reviewed.
• Your website publishes adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider too the following real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up 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 marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming targeted for non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to your site users.

Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

All of the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their services. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue with your WordPress site with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services or products via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell products online via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

You can find many online business resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you plan to create social networking applications that integrate with your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about your 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 organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or using Google AdWords 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 their 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 take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

What Legal Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Compliant?

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your site keep out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us Page
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms (if you provide users with access to media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the correct type of disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies readers that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Informs your readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets site users know that you were 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 Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers 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 them for you.

We recommend creating a legals directory in your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …

(Display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)

We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar here:

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In The Sidebar

Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut & paste website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

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

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates 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 that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (ToS) & 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 page on your website 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 your legal pages to your web server as described previously.

More info:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using cut & paste legal templates, you can keep things really simple by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages)

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

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you many headaches.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your 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 every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Select from various built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – 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 useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

For an in-depth review of this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 of Service
• 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a legal firm.

We want your website to be 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 ready-made legal content, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or use online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.

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 provide no legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Additional Legal Information

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

• 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 – Better Business Bureau
• 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
• 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 compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site using simple solutions.

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