Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are promoting or offering?
As the digital era continues growing at an overwhelming speed and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you try to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is a significant factor in your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also called the 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 – BBB)
The introduction of these new laws affect several online business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in most advertising or online merchant networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this guide, we discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and provide simple solutions to help make your WordPress website compliant quickly and easily.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws wherever your business is based.
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider for one minute what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you could earn a financial benefit if visitors decide to buy through your affiliate link.
- You don’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
- Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are misleading and tries to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider also these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received 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 internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had broken 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 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risk of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog stays legally compliant.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies
Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you engage with online.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information if using their products and service. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your websites with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring 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 sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation 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 interests by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations and guidelines.
You can find many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to develop applications for your website users, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with social networking sites also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products on your site via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, 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 ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your site should help your business keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to look into including one or more of these legal pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides information about financial areas or income opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms (if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs site users that you are not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
- Review/Sample Copy – Explains to your readers that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Lets readers be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
- 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 Compliance Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares 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 adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then add links to these legal 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 site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display legal pages to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets here:
Use Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and website forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
More information:
Another option is to download a package of website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & 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 WordPress page for each legal form you want to add 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.
For more details, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using templates, you can keep things really simple using a plugin.
Here are some plugins for WordPress users you should check out:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then 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 WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when user agrees to your terms.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature is added to your main navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)
Choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 WordPress plugin, visit the plugin website:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over twenty customizable legal page templates for your digital presence …
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 Service
- 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. You can have legal pages 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 (even sites that you decide to sell).
More information:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.
We want your business to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, 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, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or use online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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 are not offering legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.
Additional Information
Here is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant 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
- Better Business Bureau Website
- 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
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
- AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
- ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
- Facebook Platform Policies
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using inexpensive solutions.
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