Category: WordPress Configuration

If you plan to grow a successful business online, you do not want to learn the hard way that you are doing something illegal.

Online laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws affect several business categories, including:

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

If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

In this article, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site using simple and cost-effective resources and solutions.

Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations wherever your business is based.

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A customer has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you will do with the details you have collected.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site users know that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you may receive a commission if they purchase it using your affiliate link.
• You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are all fake and decides to sue you as a result.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website publishes adult content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had breached 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 breaking 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 with the violation, 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 Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

it’s important to ensure that your website or blog remains legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your site users know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will engage with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their services. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue online with your blog with Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell digital products with merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …

(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you 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. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

You can find many sites that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you plan to create applications for your website users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to 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 terms of use and policies)

Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Website

If you suspect that your website falls short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

As well as the above, you may want to look into including any of the following pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you will not receive any form of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors be aware that you will derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets visitors know that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know 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 To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been 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 as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legals directory on your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …

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

You can then easily add links to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or the footer of your site) so that visitors will be able to access legal information from every page …

(Display legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)

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

• Using WordPress Widgets

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect in 2012)
• 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 added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described previously.

For more information, go here:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using cut & paste templates, you can simplify things by using a plugin.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you a great deal of time.

Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin 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 – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear inside your navigation area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type dropdown menu)

You can also choose from various built-in 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 the plugin site to learn more this useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered sites that includes over 20 customizable legal pages for your web presence …

Learn We’ve written an in-depth review of this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 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 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.

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some kind of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a solicitor.

We want your business to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

***

As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with all government laws and regulations and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or use online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Resources

Below is a time-saving 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
• 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

Additionally …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your site using inexpensive methods and resources.

***