Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are recommending or using?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s absolutely vital that you stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if your web presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites 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 departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (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 various online business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t approve digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into a range of advertising or online marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to legal requirements, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering online, and that there are plugins for WordPress users that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business is based in.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Consider for one minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A user has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you plan to do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are recommending and could derive a sales commission if visitors purchase it using your affiliate link.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund or return policies.
- Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you as a result.
- You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in a product review.
- Your website includes adult information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider too these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered 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 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, 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% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily become exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to ensure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Complying With Third-Party Services
Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will do business with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using their services. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your blog with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell information products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add certain legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically results in 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 money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
Many online resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references to a number of these at the end of this article …
(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to create social networking applications for your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Apps for social networks 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 service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, 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 their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
What Legal Pages Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Legally Compliant?
If your website lacks in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help you keep out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into implementing any of these compliance pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets site users be aware that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- 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 online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content To Your Website
Ideally, you should consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage 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 folder 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 your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from all of your site’s pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages to users on all of your site’s pages)
If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer menu, refer to this tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More information:
Alternatively, you can download a set of cut & paste website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website 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 details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, 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 WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
For more information, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using cut & paste legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users that you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If the idea of setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using WP Legal Pages …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Templates – 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 customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your dashboard section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)
You can also select from several pre-configured legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 this site to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
total website compliance & disclaimer solution …
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 of Use
- 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress 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 sites.
More information:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your site to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any type of business online, you need to ensure that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or recommend online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
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?
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.
Additional Resources
Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal obligations:
- 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- United States 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
- Google 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 above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com