Category: Website Planning

Is your website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are recommending or offering?

Internet laws are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

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

• Any kind of advertising, including text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

If your online business is not compliant, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

This article explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and explains simple methods and solutions to help make your website compliant quickly and easily.

Is Your Site Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations governing business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you recommend on your website

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A customer has a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives people an allergic reaction.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog telling your site users that you are an affiliate for the product you are marketing and may get paid financial benefits if visitors purchase the product using your affiliate link.
• You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund or return policies.
• Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult content and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider too these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required to give everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• 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 children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had infringed, 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:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s vitally important to ensure that your website or blog complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you do business with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information if using their services or features. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your website with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell digital products with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for selling digital products through ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products or services online with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

New 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 will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute 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 chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.

A number of sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to and additional references to some of these at the end of this article …

(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to develop applications that integrate with your site, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether you may be 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 services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

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

Basic Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will keep you out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party 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 Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above, you may want to consider including any of these compliance pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies readers that you will receive compensation if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users know that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will 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.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content 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 legal directory on your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

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

(Display legal pages to visitors on all of your site’s pages)

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets, refer to this tutorial:

• Using Widgets

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable website forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates)

Cut & Paste website templates were written by an attorney and 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 web pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• ToS & 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 WordPress page for each legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.

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

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• 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.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WP page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when user agrees to your terms.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will be added to your main dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)

You can also select from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Built-In 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

Go here to learn more this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring lawyers to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing 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 legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal forms, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate basic 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, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website doesn’t comply 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 are not offering legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain 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
• BBB – 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website.

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