Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are selling or recommending?
Online laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of these laws has ramifications for several business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, including text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your website is not compliant, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
In this guide, we discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website.
Is Your Website Breaking The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business is located.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Consider what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to occur:
- A customer has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with it.
- Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website or blog telling visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting and could receive a sales commission if they purchase it.
- You did not spell out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider also these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to give everyone he does 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 from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ 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 in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 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 business owner can easily become exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
You need to ensure that your digital presence is fully compliant with the law.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services
Big companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You are obligated to let your site users know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires websites to display legal information if using their services. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your WordPress site with Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell products online with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.
A number of sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create social networking applications for your website users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with 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., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon 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 display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Legally Compliant?
If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider including any of these compliance pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Discloses to readers that you’re not receiving any form of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your readers know that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets visitors know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets readers be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets your 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 online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content To Your Website
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals folder to your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar menu (or the footer of your website or blog) so that visitors have access to legal information from all your pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-prepared website forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
To learn more, visit this website:
Another option is to purchase a package of website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These legal pages were created 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 add your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- 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 every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.
More information:
WordPress Legal Plugins
As well as using legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins you may be interested in using:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main WP dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings)
With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)
You can also choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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
Go here to learn more about using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable legal pages for your digital business …
Learn We’ve written an in-depth review of this plugin here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More info:
If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As stated earlier, if you make money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party products and services that you may be promoting or selling 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, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
Legal Resources And References
Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:
- 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
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
- Google 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org