Category: Website Planning

As a website owner, the last thing you want is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

As digital business continues growing at such a rapid pace and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your site remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure 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.

(Better Business Bureau)

The introduction of new laws has ramifications for various online business activities, including:

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

If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, 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 digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of complying with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be endorsing on your site, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become fully compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Is Your Site Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you use on your website

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a minute what could happen to your business if any of these situations were to happen:

• A customer has a heart attack after using your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site users aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you could receive a financial benefit if they buy it.
• You didn’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
• A visitor claims that your testimonials are all fake and decides to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of the product you reviewed.
• Your site publishes adult-related information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider now these actual examples 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 details to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped 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 information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many 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 breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 they had infringed, 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
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

it’s important to ensure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site visitors.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services

Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you interact with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products or features. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your sites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products with merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before your products can be approved for sale in their networks …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create social networking applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering 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)

Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Website

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

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your website stay out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to consider adding one or more of these pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Informs users that you will not be receiving any form of payment for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets site users know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know 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 Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Site

Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

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 them for you.

We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

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

You can then add links to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that users will be able to access the information from all pages …

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

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Configuring Widgets On Your Blog Sidebar Navigation Area

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a package of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, 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
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here for more information:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress users you may be interested in using:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you loads of headaches.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page 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 a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to your 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 is added to your WP dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

This lets you view, create and edit 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, niche sites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)

Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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

To learn more this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites containing over 20 customizable compliance templates for your online business …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 & Conditions
• 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal form or lawyer.

We want your site to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and any terms of service and guidelines of 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.

Additional Resources

Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

In Addition …

• 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 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 essential legal pages to your site.

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