Category: WordPress Configuration

Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose services or products you do business with?

Internet laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then 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 known as BBB. Search online for information about “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 affect several business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in many advertising and online marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be recommending on your website, and that there are easy solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you promote

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A user has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement that lets subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with their details.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog telling your visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you could receive a sales commission if visitors buy through your link.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
• Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you because of it.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult content and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider now the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• 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 children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them 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% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s imperative to ensure that your website or blog stays fully compliant with the law.

Complying With Third-Party Services

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

You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will engage with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information when using their products or features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your online properties using Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell digital products using places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell or promote products using testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation 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 does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide references and links to useful resources to some of these at the end of this article …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create social networking applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or making money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay 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 their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

What Legal Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If your website or blog is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your website keep out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider adding one or more of these pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you are not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies visitors that you may be compensated if they purchase through your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Informs your visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users know 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 consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legals directory on your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that visitors have access to legal information from all of your pages …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:

• Configuring Widgets On The Blog Sidebar Navigation Menu

Using Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more details, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Another option is to download a set of website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(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 easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
• 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 the pages to your web server as described earlier.

Go here to learn more:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

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

Here are some legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages)

If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time.

Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• 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. When a user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature is added to your main WP dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from your 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 with products, affiliate websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)

You can also select from several pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 the plugin website to learn more about this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

For an in-depth review of this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 – 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 powered 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 the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some kind of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do any type of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and the terms of service and guidelines of 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. Your website or blog must comply with a wide range of regulations, many of which you may not even be aware of.

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, we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your website may require to comply and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission 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
• US Copyright Office

In Addition …

• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog.

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