Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are doing business with?
Online laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.
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 commercial gain, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory 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 for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of new laws has ramifications for various online business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject your applications, and you won’t be accepted into a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your business online is not compliant, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website(s) are subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be offering online, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your websites become more compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you recommend on your website or blog
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider for a moment what could happen to your business if any of these situations were to take place:
- Someone suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website making your visitors aware that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you will receive financial benefits if visitors end up buying using your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
- Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are misleading and decide to sue you as a result.
- You have not disclosed that you have received a free copy in your product review.
- Your website includes adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider too these real 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. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. 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 independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach 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 notices or lose access to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming a target of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
You need to ensure that your digital presence complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
All the big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will engage with.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their products and service. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your site with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …
(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
New 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 typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. you should protect your business by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.
There are many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …
(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to develop social networking applications that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon 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 include 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 whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Basic Legal Pages To Include In Your Site
If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to look into adding one or more of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Use Of Media (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the right disclosures to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs site users that you will not receive any form of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample/Review Copy – Informs site users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets visitors be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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 Website
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that users can access legal information from every web page …
(Display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
To learn more, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a set of legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms)
These legal templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- 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 pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.
Go here for more info:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
As well as using templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users that you may be interested in using:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)
If the idea of creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – 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 every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when user agrees to your terms.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your main WordPress dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
You can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)
Select from a number of pre-written 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 this site to learn more about using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
total website compliance and disclaimer solution …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 & Conditions
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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 sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
To learn more, visit this site:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site 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 documents, or a plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate necessary 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 are making money online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines of third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole set 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, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Additional Resources
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- 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 – 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
Also …
- Google 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive legal resources and plugins.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)