Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are doing business with?
Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to 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) 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)
The new laws has implications for several online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, like pay-per-click advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website or blog(s) may be required to comply with various legalities, the importance of remaining compliant 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 that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.
Is Your Website Compliant?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you use on your website or blog
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for a minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A person has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives people an allergic reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are selling that you could get paid a sales commission if they buy it.
- You didn’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
- A visitor claims that your testimonials are misleading and tries to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy of a product in your review.
- Your site contains adult information and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider now these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 whose policies with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- 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 complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services
Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will engage with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using their products and features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Generating revenue with your website using Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your business using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell digital products using places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.
Various business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to create applications that will integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that 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 with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Compliance Information Pages Should I Add To My Site To Be Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing any of these compliance pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your readers be aware that you are not receiving compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you will benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Informs visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your readers that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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.
Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add links to your pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your site) so that visitors will be able to access the information from every page …
(Display links to your legal information to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer menu using widgets here:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
For more details, go here:
Another option is to purchase a package of cut & paste legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website 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 your legal pages to your web server as described previously.
For more details, go here:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be 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 any page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks only when the user agrees to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature is added to your main WP dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
Select from various built-in legal templates …
(WP 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
Visit this website to learn more about using this useful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
total website compliance & disclaimer solution …
For an in-depth article about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
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 of Service
- 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 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.
To learn more, go here:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.
We want your site to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal content, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any type of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and any guidelines and terms of service required by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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 offer no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Resources
Below is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your website may require to comply and meet its legal obligations:
- Federal Trade Commission 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
Additionally …
- 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using simple resources and WordPress plugins.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org