Category: Website Planning

If you do any kind of business online, the last thing you want to do is to find yourself breaking rules or regulations.

As the cybersphere continues growing at such a fast pace and rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence plays a significant part in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then 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). 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 – BBB)

These laws has legal implications for several online business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. pay-per-click advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a number of advertising or online marketing networks.

If your web presence is not in compliance, you could end up facing a number 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 how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective legal resources and WordPress plugins.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws in your country or region.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if any of these situations were to occur:

• A user has a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not defined what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
• You haven’t informed your site visitors that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and could derive an affiliate commission if they purchase through your link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund and return policies.
• Online visitors claim that your testimonials are false and decide to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy in your product review.
• Your website contains adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider also these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. 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 private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape 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-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence remains fully compliant with the law.

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Compliance with third-party companies terms and policies is important.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will engage with.

Here are just some examples:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

And even promoting your business using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their network …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, 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 plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.

You can find many resources online that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance

If you are planning to create apps for your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide information about various 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site via affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, 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 shut down.
• If you have ever wondered 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 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should help you stay out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider implementing any of these legal pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors be aware that you will benefit financially if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that visitors will be able to access legal information from every page …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WordPress sidebar and footer here:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

Go here for more information:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress 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.

Go here for more details:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.

Here are some legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages)

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

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

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

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages 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 lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your main navigation section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings)

You have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site dropdown menu)

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, visit the plugin website:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your website …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 of Service
• 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. 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 this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

Go here for more information:

• Legal Suite Pro

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 to hire the services of a legal form or lawyer.

We want your business to be protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for third-party sites that you may be promoting or recommending online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

References And Resources

Below is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• FTC 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
• 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
• Google 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 provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.

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