Category: Website Planning

One of the worst predicaments a website owner can find themselves in is to break the law.

As the cybersphere continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules keep changing, it’s important that you try to stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if having an online presence plays a significant role in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “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 ramifications for various business categories, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a range of advertising and online merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements according to laws that govern business practices online, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be using online, and that there are easy solutions for WordPress that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based in.

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the scenarios below were to happen:

• A customer suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you plan to do with it.
• Someone copies content from your site and publishes it on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you could get paid a commission if visitors buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of the product you reviewed.
• Your website includes adult-related content and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 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% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 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 become exposed to the risk of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

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

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

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

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

For example:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue with your websites using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products via places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to sell online using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation 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 chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

A number of business resource sites provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you 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 Applications

If you plan to create apps for your site users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or use 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site lacks in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

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

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

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Informs users that you are not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Informs your readers that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your readers that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• 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.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage 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 folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then easily add links to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …

(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)

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

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In The Blog

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here for more information:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a package of website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website templates 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 name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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

For more details, go here:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using legal templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some WordPress plugins you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

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

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will display inside your main dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

You can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)

Choose from various pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 about this plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 & Conditions
• 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

For more information, go here:

• 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 site until you can afford to hire a solicitor.

We want your website to be safe!

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 legal templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines required by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or recommending online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

References And Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:

• 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
• 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

Also …

• 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 website or blog.

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