Category: Website Planning

If you do any kind of business online, the last thing you want is to find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital way of life continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your website remains legal, especially if having a digital presence plays an important role in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. 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 – Better Business Bureau)

These laws has consequences for several business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a number of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog are required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be advertising on your site, and that there are easy solutions that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. As stated above, the purpose of this article is 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 services or products you recommend

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

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

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with it.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their website.
• You have not divulged to your visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re selling and will earn a financial benefit if they decide to purchase using your link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund or return policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are misleading and try to sue you.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

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 info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach 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 cautions 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 risk of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Info Product Publisher
• 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 website or blog remains legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

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

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue with your site using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages before your products are approved for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell or promote products using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to create social networking applications that integrate with your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide 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 whether “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 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

What Compliance Information Does My Website Need To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your website is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into including any of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides general health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Lets users be aware that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to visitors that you may receive compensation if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Informs site users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets users be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
• 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Site

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

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

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

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

If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar, see this tutorial:

• How To Add Widgets To Your WordPress Sidebar

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates)

These templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages 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
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: with 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 your legal pages to your web server as previously described.

Go here for more details:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms

Legal Pages – Plugins

In addition to using templates, another option is to use a plugin.

Here are some great legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If the idea of setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Includes 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 around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

You have the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche sites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

You can also select from various pre-configured legal templates …

(WP 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

To learn more this useful plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 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 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 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).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.

We want your website to be legally safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate necessary 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 are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or use online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.

Additional Information

Here 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 its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau Website
• 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
• United States Copyright Office

See Also …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective methods and solutions.

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