One of the worst situations a website owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.
Online laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t excuse someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “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 affect several business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in most advertising and online merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website using inexpensive methods and solutions.
Is Your Site Compliant?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based in.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to happen:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with the details you have collected.
- Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your site making visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re marketing that you may earn financial benefits if they buy it.
- You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
- A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are false and tries to sue you.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website publishes adult-related content and you did not take sufficient 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 visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 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 being targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
it’s important to ensure that your digital presence is legally compliant.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies
Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You are required to let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information if using their products or service. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue online with your online properties using Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your business using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages before your products can be approved for selling via their marketplace …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product sellers)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity 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 site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Many online resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide references to some of these at the end of this article …
(You must 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 integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide 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, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Legally Compliant?
If your web site is falling short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website will 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. “takedown” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into including any of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general content about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets users know that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you may derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to your visitors that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
- 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult lawyers 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 Web Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, 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 server via FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or the footer of your site) so that users will be able to access the information from every web page …
(Display links to legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer in WordPress using widgets here:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
Go here for more details:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut & paste 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 a quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your 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 FTC regulations brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.
To learn more, visit this site:
Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress websites and blogs worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider installing WP Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will help 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:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks when user agrees to your terms.
- Additional 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 main navigation area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
Choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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
Visit the plugin website to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over twenty customizable legal templates for your online business …
Go here to learn more:
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 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.
More information:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a lawyer.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator 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 we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or recommend online. If your website doesn’t comply 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to comply and meet 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
- 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
And …
- 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
- Google 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 compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website.
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