Category: WordPress Configuration

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital way of life continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your 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 profit, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws affect various online business activities, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a range of advertising or online marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

This article explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and explains simple and cost-effective methods and solutions to help make your WordPress site legally compliant.

Is Your Website Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws wherever you do business.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider what could happen to your business if any of the situations below were to occur:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you’ll do with it.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own site.
• You haven’t informed your site users that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you may receive a financial benefit if they buy the product through your link.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you received a free copy of a product you reviewed.
• Your website publishes adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete an offer they were promoting. 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 Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being exposed to litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

You need to ensure that your website or blog is legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

All the leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will engage with.

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your blogs with Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site complies with FTC regulations.

A number of business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to create apps for your site users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, 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 suspended.
• 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, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your site should keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right type of content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Informs your visitors that you may benefit financially if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to visitors that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers 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 add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from all your pages …

(It’s important to display legal pages to users on all of your site’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer here:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Blog

Legal Templates

You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

Go here for more details:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use: with 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 site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described earlier.

More information:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, 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 time.

Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages are:

• 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 your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other 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 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 every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will be added to your navigation area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, niche sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)

Select from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 about this great plugin, visit this site:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites containing over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your web presence …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.

We want your business to be legally safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to ensure 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 for 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or recommending online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Additional Resources

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission 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
• US Copyright Office

In Addition …

• 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
• Google 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website.

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