Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you advertise or recommend?
Online laws are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect someone from taking legal action against you.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of these new laws affect various business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not compliant, you could face a multitude 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(s) may be subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever you do business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A user suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you will do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own site.
- There is no statement on your website making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing and may get paid a financial benefit if visitors buy it.
- You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Online visitors claim that your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you as a result.
- You did not disclose that you received a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
- Your website publishes adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider too these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- 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. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required 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 received 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, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in violation of 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 easy it is to risk becoming targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s vitally important to ensure that your website or blog remains legally compliant.
Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue with your WordPress site using Google AdSense display advertising …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell digital products through merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add certain legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for sellers)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this often ends up with 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 do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
A number of business resource sites 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 …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you are planning to create applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online using affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Compliant?
If your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider including one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general advice about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you will not receive any type of payment for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs visitors that you may receive compensation if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample Or review Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage 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 the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then easily add links to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that users have access to legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your WordPress sidebar and footer here:
Using Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
Go here for more info:
Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
- 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want added 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 previously described.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
As well as using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a 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 time.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit 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.
- Shortcodes – You can 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 check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your main dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)
Choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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
To learn more this plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over 20 customizable compliance templates for your online presence …
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 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 site. You can have legal pages 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 (even sites that you decide to sell).
More info:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.
We want your site to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal documents, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and 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 is compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
Additional Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet its legal obligations:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau – 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and cost-effective legal resources and solutions.
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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