Category: Website Planning

Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are using or promoting?

Internet laws and regulations were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse someone from taking legal action against your business.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws has legal implications for several online business categories, including:

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

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising and online merchant networks.

If you are not in compliance, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be advertising online, and that there are easy solutions for WordPress that can help your websites become more compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.

Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated above, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you advertise on your website

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

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

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone an adverse reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you are selling that you could get paid a commission if visitors buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
• A visitor claims that your testimonials are misleading and tries to sue you because of it.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in a product review.
• Your website contains adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider now the real examples of costly compliance breaches listed below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received 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 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-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

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

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

All the big online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are required to let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information if using many of their services. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your sites using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. you should protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(You must 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 develop applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with 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., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides advice about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Discloses to users that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Informs your readers that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Lets readers be aware that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content 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 legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

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

You can then add links to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that visitors will be able to access the information from every page …

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

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

• Adding WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

To learn more, visit this site:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a package of cut and paste website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

These 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 details, then pasted into your pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:

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

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

To learn more, visit this site:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using cut & paste templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users that you may be interested in using:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you many headaches.

Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to 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 the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your WordPress dashboard section …

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

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)

You can also select from various built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 this plugin, visit this site:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …

For an in-depth review of this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 & Conditions
• 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some type of basic legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a legal expert.

We want your site to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you make money online, it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your digital presence must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.

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, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website 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
• BBB – 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
• 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
• Google AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
• ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
• Facebook Platform Policies

We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress site.

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