Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
As the digital economy continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the 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.
(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws has legal ramifications for various online business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like contextual advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and show you simple ways that will make your WordPress site legally compliant.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated above, the aim of this article is 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 and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you use
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider what would happen to your business if the following situations were to take place:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you plan to do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site letting your site users know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you may earn a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are false and decides to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
- Your website contains adult-related content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider now these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to become exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
All of the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade in many countries emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using their services. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your blog with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online using merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often prompts 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 kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any 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 complies with FTC regulations.
Various resources online provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the additional references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create apps that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to 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 plan to promote services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or making money online 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 need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you’ve ever wondered whether “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 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Basic Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your site will help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs readers that you’re not receiving any kind of compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may be compensated if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 Content To Your Site
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar (or the footer of your site) so that users can access legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar, refer to this tutorial:
Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Visit this site to learn more:
Alternatively, you can download a package of legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates)
These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described earlier.
More information:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you loads of headaches.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few 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. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages 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 other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when the user agrees to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature is added to your dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)
Choose from various pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages – 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
To learn more this great plugin, visit the plugin site:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your digital business …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
For more information, go here:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your site 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 legal documentation, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator lets you easily 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 stated earlier, if you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with all laws and regulations and the guidelines and terms of service for third-party services and products that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your internet presence must comply with numerous regulations, some of which you may not 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 cannot offer legal advice on our website. 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 wherever your business is based.
References And 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 requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau – 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
Also …
- Google Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now