If you do any kind of business online, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have broken rules or regulations.
As digital business continues to grow at such a rapid pace and the rules constantly change, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly 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 consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of these new laws affect several business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in most advertising or online merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this guide, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple resources and solutions.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern online business practices and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose services or products you advertise on your website or blog
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the following were to happen:
- A person has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not defined what you will do with it.
- Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own site.
- You did not tell visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting and will earn financial benefits if visitors buy it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund or return policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are false and tries to sue you.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult-related information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider also the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them 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 breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 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 you could easily be exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords User
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to make sure that your website complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you interact with online.
For example:
Google requires websites to display certain information if using their products. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell products online using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their network …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically ends up with 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 is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
A number of resources online provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you are planning to develop applications for your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services online via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to look into adding one or more of these legal pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- 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 (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to users that you may benefit financially if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets site users know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs visitors that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) so that visitors will be able to access legal information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress, refer to this tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More information:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission 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 pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as previously described.
Visit this site to learn more:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will 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 WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)
Select from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured 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 WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
total website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Learn more here:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 And 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
For more information, go here:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your site to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with government regulations and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party products and services that you may be promoting or selling online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect consumers, 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 provide no legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your specific business.
Additional 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 comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC 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
- United States Copyright Office
In Addition …
- Google 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress site using simple legal resources and WordPress plugins.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)