Category: Website Planning

One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

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

If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not approve digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in most advertising and online merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website or blog(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be endorsing online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. As stated earlier, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you use on your website

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A person suffers a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve told subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your site letting your visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are recommending that you could receive a sales commission if they decide to buy via your affiliate link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your return policies.
• A visitor claims that your testimonials are misleading and decides to sue you because of it.
• You haven’t disclosed that you were given a free copy in a product review.
• Your site contains adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider too the documented examples of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 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 with warnings or lose access entirely 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 being exposed to litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

You need to make sure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to your site users.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You must let your site users know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you interact with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your website with Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted 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 has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC guidelines.

A number of online resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the additional references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create apps that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything online via affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon 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 need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)

What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Compliant?

If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help your website keep out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider adding any of the following pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add correct disclosures to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know 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.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legal directory on your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)

You can then add links to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

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

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Using Ready-Made Templates

You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more details, go here:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut & paste legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as previously described.

Go here for more information:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things by using a plugin.

Here are some great WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable 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 WordPress Legal Pages plugin:

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When the user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main WordPress dashboard area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 this WordPress plugin, visit this website:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites containing over 20 customizable legal page templates for your site …

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 & Conditions
• 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your site to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal content, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and any terms of service and guidelines required 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 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your site may require 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
• Better Business Bureau – 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

And …

• 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
• 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and inexpensive legal resources and WordPress plugins.

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