Category: WordPress Configuration

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital way of life continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having an online presence plays a significant part in your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, 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 to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

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

If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote many advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

If you are not compliant, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site using simple and cost-effective legal resources and solutions.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing 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 requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose services or products you promote

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider for one moment what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• You haven’t informed your visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re promoting and will earn a commission if visitors buy it.
• You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult-related content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider too these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required 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 whopping $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 does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 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 become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

You need to make sure that your website is legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

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

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue with your websites using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell products online through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add certain legal pages before your products can be approved for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements product vendors selling via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures on your site, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

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 ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this will most likely prompt 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 business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.

There are many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to create applications for your website users, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide information about your 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, 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 display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your website lacks in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above, you may want to consider implementing any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Informs users that you are not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you will derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they purchase through your affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets visitors know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs visitors that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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 To Your WordPress Website

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

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage 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 creating a legal folder in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

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

You can then add a link to your pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from every page …

(It’s important to display links to your legal pages to users on all of your site’s pages)

For a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Sidebar Navigation Area

Use Store-Bought Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here for more info:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of cut & paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• 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 web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.

Go here for more information:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste legal templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal 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 a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your WP dashboard menu section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)

You can also choose from several pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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

Visit the plugin website for more information about the benefits of using this useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 And 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Visit this website to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your site to be safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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 engage in any form of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or recommend online. Your digital presence must comply with numerous regulations, 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Resources

Here is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet its legal obligations:

• 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
• 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

In Addition …

• 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 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 above to quickly add essential legal pages to your site.

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