Category: Website Planning

One of the worst situations a website owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital era continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an integral factor in your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)

The introduction of these laws has legal ramifications for several online business categories, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a range of advertising or online marketing networks.

If your online business is not compliant, you could end up facing a multitude 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 may be subject to legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be advertising on your site, and that there are easy solutions for WordPress that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose services or products you promote on your website

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be if any of these situations were to occur:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site telling your site visitors that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you may earn financial benefits if they purchase it.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are false and try to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy in a product review.
• Your website includes adult content and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider too the documented examples of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received 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 details.
• 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 picked at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming targeted for litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

it’s important to ensure that your website or blog remains fully compliant with the law.

Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Big companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

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

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their services. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your online properties with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for selling digital products through ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in 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 type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC guidelines.

A number of online resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to create applications for your website, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networks also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not 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 anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include 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 protect yourself and your business.

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

Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site

If your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above, you may want to look into including one or more of these compliance 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 (if your website or blog provides money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the correct type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Informs visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers be aware that you have been 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.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

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

We recommend adding a legal folder 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 legal pages in WordPress 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 visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your site) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from every web page …

(Display legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)

If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding Widgets To The Blog Sidebar

Using Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a package of legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Plugins

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

Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you may be interested in checking out:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you many headaches.

Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes 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 just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear inside your main navigation area …

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

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – 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 about using this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 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. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your business to be legally protected!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates 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, you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or selling 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 provide no legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.

Additional Information

Here is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your site may require 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
• 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
• Google 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website.

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