Category: Website Planning

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.

As the digital economy continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

The introduction of these laws affect various online business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, like contextual ads
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list digital products for sale, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in a range of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

In addition, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your site are required to comply with certain legalities in accordance with the laws that govern online businesses, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you may be selling online, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become fully compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing 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 all legal requirements in your country or region.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if the scenarios below were to happen:

• A user has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives people allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you will do with their details.
• Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their own website.
• You haven’t informed your visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re recommending and could receive a sales commission if they purchase it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund and return policies.
• Visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are false and decide to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy in your product review.
• Your website includes adult-related content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider also these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $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 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 prohibits users from scraping 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 independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 to the Google program with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s imperative to ensure that your website stays fully compliant with the law.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services

Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with online.

For example:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your websites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information-based products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add a number of legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your site complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.

Many business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See our additional references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to develop apps for your site users, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networking sites like Facebook 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 it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, 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 shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Website

If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following legal pages to your site should help your site stay out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides information about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you will not receive any type of payment for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors be aware that you may receive compensation if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets readers know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your visitors know that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your 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 Website

Ideally, you will consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading 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 web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

You can then easily add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …

(WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that users can access legal information from every page …

(Display links to legal pages on all of your site’s pages)

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer, see this tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Sidebar Area

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut and paste website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple 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 Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• 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 each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.

Go here for more info:

• Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress-driven websites worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your WP dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

You can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site drop down menu)

You can also choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – 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 the benefits of using this powerful plugin, visit this website:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

total website compliance and disclaimer solution …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance 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 And Conditions
• 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be 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 the plugin on all of your websites.

Go here for more information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.

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 attorney-written legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines required by 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website or blog must comply with various regulations, 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet 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
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB
• 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

Also …

• Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• 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 above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website using inexpensive methods and resources.

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