Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are selling or endorsing?
Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site 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 BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws affect several online business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, like Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in most advertising or online marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your website or blog(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be selling on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become more compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.
Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated earlier, the aim of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you endorse
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Consider for one minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people an allergic reaction.
- You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone steals content from your site and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting your visitors know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you may receive a sales commission if they decide to buy through your affiliate link.
- You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy of a product in your review.
- Your website contains adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider too the real 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 their personal information (including credit card information to complete his 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 information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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 broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how a website owner can easily be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business remains fully compliant with the law.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site users know that your website complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you engage with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display certain information if using their products and features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your blogs using Google AdSense display advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services or products using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add certain legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their network …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is 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 often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC guidelines.
There are many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to develop applications that will integrate with your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve 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 magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
What Compliance Information Does Your Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will help you keep out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to look into implementing any of these legal pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general health or medical advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you will benefit financially if they buy through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 Pages Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, 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 directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that users can access legal information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:
Use Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
More info:
Alternatively, you can download a set of cut & paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service & 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 web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.
For more information, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using templates, you can simplify things using plugins.
Here are some legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you many headaches.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by 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 just 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 Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When a user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item is added to your dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
You can also select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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
Go here for more information about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …
Go here to learn more about the 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 Plugin – 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 flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Go here for more details:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential 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 (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines required by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or use online. Your digital presence must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.
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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.
Additional Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to comply and meet legal obligations:
- 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 – Better Business Bureau
- 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
Additionally …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)