Category: WordPress Configuration

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to break the law.

As the digital economy continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely essential to try and stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau)

These laws has legal consequences for several online business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, including pay-per-click advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in many advertising or online marketing networks.

You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress site using simple and cost-effective methods and solutions.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to 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 companies whose services or products you advertise on your website

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

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

• Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you plan to do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your site users know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you will receive an affiliate commission if visitors buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are misleading and decide to sue you.
• You have not disclosed that you have received a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
• Your site contains adult content and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider now these real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received 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 UIDs. Many 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 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach 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 notices 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 easy it is to risk being exposed to litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.

You must let your site users know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your site using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information products via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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 chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations.

You can find many sites that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to create applications for your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay 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 - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

What Compliance Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?

If your website is falling short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

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

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Website Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to consider adding one or more of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs users that you may benefit financially if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web 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 …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

You can then easily add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that users can access legal information from all pages …

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer using widgets, see this tutorial:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Site

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more information, go here:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service (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 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 the pages to your web server as previously described.

Go here for more details:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

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

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider installing WP Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you time.

Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your main dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 WordPress plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 Plugin – 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).

For more details, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines provided by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or recommend online. Your website must comply with numerous 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to remain compliant and meet 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 – 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

In Addition …

• 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and inexpensive methods and resources.

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