Category: WordPress Configuration

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a website owner 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 or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

These laws affect several online business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. contextual advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a range of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

If your online business is not in compliance, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your site may be subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be using online, and that there are plugins for WordPress users that can help your site become fully compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Is Your Site Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated earlier, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you use on your website or blog

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with the details you’ve collected.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site making your site visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you may earn financial benefits if they end up purchasing via your link.
• You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you as a result.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also 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 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 details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 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% 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 cautions or lose access 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 a website owner can easily be exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

it’s important to make sure that your website stays legally compliant.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

You are expected to let your site users know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with.

For example:

Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your online properties using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

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

(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

Many online business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See our 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 the law)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you are planning to create applications for your website users, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online via affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay 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 provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

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

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimer
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above, you may want to consider adding any of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general financial information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs users that you are not receiving compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors be aware that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legals folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

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

You can then add a link to these legal pages from your WordPress site 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 visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that users have access to the information from every web page …

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

For a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using Widgets

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut and paste legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• ToS & 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 on your website for every legal form you want added 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.

Visit this site to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress users you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider installing WP Legal Pages instead …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you a great deal of time.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WP page.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your main dashboard section …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page type menu)

Select from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 site to learn more this useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your online presence …

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

This 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 Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin – 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less 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:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your business to be legally 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-prepared legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Legal Resources And References

Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your website 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 – Better Business Bureau
• 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

Plus …

• 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website using simple and cost-effective resources and solutions.

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