One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to break the law.
As the digital era continues growing at an overwhelming speed and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to try and stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory 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 for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of these laws has legal ramifications for several business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, including Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a range of advertising or online merchant networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website or blog are subject to legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be endorsing on your site, and that there are easy solutions that can help your website become fully compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.
Is Your Site Breaking The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. As stated above, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you offer on your website
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider what could happen to your business if these scenarios were to take place:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you plan to do with it.
- Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you could earn an affiliate commission if they purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your return policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are all fake and tries to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy of a product you reviewed.
- Your website contains adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider too these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdWords User
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s imperative to ensure that your website remains legally compliant.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you engage with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using their services or product features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your website using Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell digital products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you are required to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements product vendors selling via ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially when concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site 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 is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations.
Various online business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the references and 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)
Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance
If you are planning to develop social networking applications that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure 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 anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online 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 need 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, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Legally Compliant?
If your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your site will keep you out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to look into adding any of these 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 (e.g. if your website provides general financial advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs site users that you are not receiving any kind of compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your readers know that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets visitors know that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
- 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then easily add links to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your site) so that users can access legal information from every web page …
(Display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)
If you need help adding links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer using widgets, refer to this tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
More info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for each 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 web server as previously described.
Go here to learn more:
Plugins – Legal Pages
In addition to using templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – 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 other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when user agrees to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)
You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 this site to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered sites with over 20 customizable compliance templates for your digital business …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro 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 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 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here to learn more:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your business to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As stated earlier, if you do business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by third-party products and services that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, 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 are not offering legal advice in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
References And Resources
Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission 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
Plus …
- Google 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
We hope this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website using inexpensive methods and resources.
***
"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)