One of the worst predicaments a business owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.
As the digital economy continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s important that you try to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays an important role in your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
These laws affect various online business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed into a number of advertising and online marketing networks.
In addition, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
In this guide, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and provide simple solutions that will make your WordPress site compliant in minutes.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements 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 promote
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Consider for one minute what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A user has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you will do with their details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website making your visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you could receive a sales commission if they buy it.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
- Visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider also the following 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. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of 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 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming a target of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence is legally compliant.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Compliance with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your site visitors know that your website complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will engage with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your website using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations.
Various business resource sites provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide links to useful and additional references to a number of these at the end of this article …
(It’s important to structure 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 social networking applications that integrate with your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with all 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 take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Pages Should You Add To Your Website To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides health or medical advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies your readers that you will derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to your visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets readers be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets your 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you should consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually 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 site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal directory to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then easily add links to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors can access the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)
Visit this website to learn more:
Another option is to download a package of website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates 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 legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & 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 every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as previously described.
To learn more, visit this site:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using copy & paste templates, you can keep things really simple using plugins.
Here are some plugins for WordPress-powered websites you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear inside your main navigation menu …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site drop down menu)
You can also select from several built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over twenty customizable legal templates for your digital presence …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
For more details, go here:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your site to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential 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 do any type of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. Your website must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.
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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on our website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.
Resources
Here is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- 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 …
- 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site using inexpensive legal resources and solutions.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)