Category: WordPress Configuration

One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a business owner is to break the law.

Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t protect someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

These laws affect several online business categories, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed into most advertising and online marketing networks.

If your web presence is not compliant, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements according to laws that govern business practices online, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be advertising on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your website become fully compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you are endorsing and may get paid an affiliate commission if visitors buy it.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are false and tries to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your site includes adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider also the following actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ 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% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached 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 with warnings or lose access 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 through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog stays fully compliant with the law.

Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Compliance with third-party companies terms and policies is important.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will engage with online.

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products through merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale in their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this often 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 plan to do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

Many resources online provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to develop apps for your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Facebook 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 organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need 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 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 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

What Legal Information Should I Add To My Site To Be Protected From Legal Compliance Issues?

If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

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

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

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you are not receiving any type of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs visitors that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
• 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 Content To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (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 directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website

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

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Configuring Widgets On Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

For more details, go here:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut and paste legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use: with 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 to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

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

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable 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.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will be added to your WP dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, niche sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page type menu)

Select from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – Built-In 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 this website for more details about using this great plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

total website compliance and disclaimer solution …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

Legal Suite Pro 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a lawyer.

We want your website to be legally 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 attorney-prepared legal forms, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party services and products that you may be promoting or using online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

Non-compliance 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

References And Legal Resources

Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet its 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 – BBB
• 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 …

• 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
• 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 provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using simple resources and plugins.

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