Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
Internet laws are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent 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 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 for more details.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The new laws has consequences for several business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, including Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in various advertising and online merchant networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your site may be subject to legal requirements, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be selling online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your websites become more compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.
Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you offer on your website
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate gives people an adverse reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and could derive a sales commission if visitors buy it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your return policies.
- Visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed that you received a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
- Your site contains adult information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider also these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- 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 private information 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, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two 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 to the Google program they had infringed, 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 risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Big companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will engage with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their products and features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your WordPress blog with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC regulations.
Many resources online provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See the references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about your legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networking sites 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 you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue 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 their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
- 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 terms of use)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website
If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you are not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
- Sample/Review Copy – Discloses to visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy 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 To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages 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 them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from all pages …
(Display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets here:
Templates
You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
Go here for more information:
Alternatively, you can download a set of legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms)
Cut & Paste website legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations that came into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new page for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.
Go here for more details:
WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using legal templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with 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 – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your 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 any WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your WordPress dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)
Select from several built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this great plugin:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro 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 – 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
For more information, go here:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a solicitor.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.
Legal Information
Here is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
Plus …
- 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive resources and solutions.
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