Category: Website Planning

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

As the digital realm continues to grow at such a rapid pace and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws has consequences for various online business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, including Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not include certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of advertising or online marketing networks.

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

The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your website(s) may be subject to legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be endorsing online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice about your website or business. As stated above, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose services or products you advertise on your website

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

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

• A person suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives someone an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you plan to do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website making your visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are marketing and could receive a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are misleading and try to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site includes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider now the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches listed below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction 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 details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 entirely to the Google program with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to ensure that your online business stays fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

All of the big websites and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with.

Here are just some examples:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue with your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell digital products via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your site, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

A number of business resource sites provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance

If you are planning to develop applications for your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide information about your 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 are considering promoting services or products online using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site using 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 to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and 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)

Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site

If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help you keep out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Website Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you provide users with access to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs readers that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors be aware that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares 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 HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar (or the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer menu using widgets here:

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In Your Sidebar

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here for more details:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates FTC guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, you can keep things very simple using a plugin.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages instead …

WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easy to edit 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 other WordPress page.
• Custom 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 any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main WordPress dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Page type menu)

Select from several pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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

For more details about the benefits of using this plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

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

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

To learn more, visit this site:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a legal expert.

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal forms, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you make money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations and any terms of service and guidelines required by third-party sites that you may be promoting or selling 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice here. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission 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 – 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

And …

• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog using simple and inexpensive methods and resources.

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