Category: WordPress Configuration

If you do any kind of business online, the last thing you want to do is to learn the hard way that you have broken any laws, rules or regulations.

As digital business continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and rules keep changing, it’s important to try and stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your site remains legal, especially if having an online presence plays an important part in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. 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)

These laws has consequences for various business activities, including:

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

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote many advertising or online marketing networks.

Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and shows you inexpensive ways that will make your website or blog compliant quickly and easily.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated previously, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you endorse on your website or blog

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

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

• A user suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not defined what you will do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website informing visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you could derive financial benefits if they end up buying via your affiliate link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website publishes adult-related information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches listed below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a massive $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 Users IDs. Many 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 websites picked at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could be exposed to the risks of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies

Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their products and service. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your site with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your products using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell products online with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is 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 still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute 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 located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.

Many resources online provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide links to useful resources to a number of these at the end of this article …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to develop social networking applications that integrate with your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Apps for social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, 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 shut down.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

What Compliance Pages Should You Add To Your Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help your business keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms & Conditions
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above, you may want to consider implementing any of the following 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 (if your website provides general information about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add the right disclosures to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users know that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample/Review Copy – Informs readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets visitors be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• 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 Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you should consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then easily add a link to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your site) so that users have access to legal information from every web page …

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using WordPress Widgets

Legal Templates

You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web 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 & DoubleClick 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 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 your legal pages to your server as described previously.

More info:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you should check out:

WP Legal Pages

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s an 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.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content 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 page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)

With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Type of Site drop down menu)

You can also choose from various pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 website to learn more about the benefits of using this handy plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

To learn more about this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

Visit this website to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with government legal requirements and the guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party sites 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.

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, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet 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
• 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

See Also …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple solutions.

***