Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you do business with?
As the digital way of life continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s absolutely vital to stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your web presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Do a search online for “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)
The new laws affect various business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising or online marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
In this guide, we look at the importance of having a legally compliant website and explain simple methods and solutions to make your site legally compliant quickly and easily.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated above, the purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you endorse
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site informing visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you could derive a financial benefit if visitors decide to purchase via your affiliate link.
- You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy of the product in your review.
- Your site publishes adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider now these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 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 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 notices or lose access entirely 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 easy it is to be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s imperative to make sure that your online business remains legally compliant.
Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You are required to let your site visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements 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.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information when using their products or features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell products online with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for selling via their networks …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of selling 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 by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Various business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to useful and additional references to some of these at the end of this article …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create apps that integrate with your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Covered Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If your website or blog is falling short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to consider implementing any of these compliance pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general financial information)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add correct disclosures to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs readers that you will not receive compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Informs your visitors that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample/Review Copy – Discloses to visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors be aware that you have been compensated in some way 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) so that visitors will be able to access the information from every page …
(Display links to legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar here:
Templates
You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
To learn more, go here:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These 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 add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service & 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 page on your website for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.
For more information, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using legal templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress websites that you may be interested in checking out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your main WordPress dashboard area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
You can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site dropdown menu)
You can also choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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 plugin, visit this site:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.
Go here for more details:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.
We want your business to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal forms, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate essential 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 make money online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and any terms of service and guidelines provided by 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. Your internet presence must comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
Additional Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply 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 – 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
- United States Copyright Office
Plus …
- 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
Hopefully, this article 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 WordPress website or blog using simple resources and WordPress plugins.
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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