Category: WordPress Configuration

If you do any kind of business online, the last thing you want to do is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

Online laws are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells 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 someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure 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 to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The introduction of new laws affect various online business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, including Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a range of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

In addition, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

In this article, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive methods and resources.

Is Your Site Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing prospective subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site letting your site users know that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting and could earn a financial benefit if they purchase it via your affiliate link.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Someone claims that your testimonials are misleading and decides to sue you.
• You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
• Your website includes adult-related information and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider too these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped 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 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 violation of at least 2 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to ensure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to all site users.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies

Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.

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

Here are just some examples:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your sites using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell digital products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines.

A number of resources online provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(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 applications for your website users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products online via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or using 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 display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

What Compliance Information Should You Add To Your Website To Be Compliant?

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

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into including one or more of the following pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the correct type of disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your readers know that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you will derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets site users know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers know that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, 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 in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legal directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then add links to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that users can access the information from all of your pages …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:

• Configuring Widgets On Your Sidebar Navigation Menu

Use Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

To learn more, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• 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 server as previously described.

For more details, go here:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you loads of headaches.

Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WP page.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)

With WP Legal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)

Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured 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 about using this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites and blogs with over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your online presence …

Learn We have written an in-depth article about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 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 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your website to be protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal page templates, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or selling online. Your internet presence must comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

Legal Resources & References

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require 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
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program
• 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

See Also …

• 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website.

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