One of the worst situations a business owner can find themselves in is to break the law.
Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “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 new laws has implications for various online business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, including contextual advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products for sale, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If you are not compliant, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this article, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and provide simple and cost-effective solutions to make your website or blog compliant quickly and easily.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice in this article. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business operates in.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Consider for a minute what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people an adverse reaction.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you will do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site letting your site visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are selling that you may get paid an affiliate commission if visitors purchase through your link.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- A visitor claims that your testimonials are false and decides to sue you because of it.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site publishes adult information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider now the following real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 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% were in breach of 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 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 a target of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
You need to make sure 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 - ToS, Policies, etc.
Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your site visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information if using their products or service. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your blog using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information products via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you are required to add a number of legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already 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 money-making activity 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 interests by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Many business resource sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance
If you are planning to create applications that will integrate with your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Apps for social networking sites also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be 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 anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue 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 need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help you keep out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into adding any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add correct disclosures to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs readers that you will not be receiving any type of payment for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may derive some form of financial or similar form of benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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 Legal Pages Content To Your Site
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually
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 site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal pages to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu using widgets here:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Go here to learn more:
Another option is to download a package of website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your web 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
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (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 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 described earlier.
For more details, go here:
WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages
In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things using plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you time.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written 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 just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
You can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
You can also select from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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
Go here to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online business …
Learn more about the plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
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 & Conditions
- 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 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
To learn more, visit this website:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.
We want your site to be safe!
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-prepared legal content, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for third-party services and products that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your digital presence must comply with various 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Additional Resources
Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission 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
- United States Copyright Office
And …
- 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 and easily add legal pages to your website using simple resources and solutions.
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