If you do any kind of business online, the last thing you want is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s absolutely vital that you try to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as 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 has implications for various online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, like inline ads, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t approve digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
If you are not compliant, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This guide explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide 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 wherever you do business.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if these situations were to happen:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their own website.
- You haven’t informed visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you could receive financial benefits if they buy it.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are misleading and try to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site publishes adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider too these real 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 info to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped 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, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 cautions or lose access entirely 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 litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s imperative to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to your site visitors.
Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will interact with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information when using many of their services or features. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Generating revenue online with your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell information-based products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) 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 selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
Many business resource sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create apps for your website users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or use Google AdWords 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Website
If you suspect that your website lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your site will keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider including one or more of these compliance pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides content about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the right types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs users that you will not be receiving any form of payment for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your readers be aware that you may be compensated if they buy through your affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Explains to users that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors know 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legals folder to your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
Go here for more info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your legal 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 (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service & 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described earlier.
More information:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your main navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Type of Site dropdown menu)
Select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
Visit the plugin site to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro)
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 of Use
- 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 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More information:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a solicitor.
We want your site 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 ready-made legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential 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 make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party sites that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your website or blog must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even 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 do not provide legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.
Resources
Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:
- 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 – Better Business Bureau
- 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 …
- 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
- 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive methods and resources.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)