Category: WordPress Configuration

Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you recommend or use?

Online laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

The introduction of new laws has legal consequences for several online business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in various advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

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

This guide explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and explains simple and inexpensive solutions that will help make your WordPress site compliant quickly and easily.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

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

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the following were to take place:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you plan to do with the information you’ve collected.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
• You did not tell your visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing that you could receive a commission if they decide to buy through your link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and decide to sue you because of it.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site includes adult-related information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider also the following documented case studies 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 a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting 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 breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program 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 non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

it’s important to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information displayed to your site users.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

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

You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using their services or features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your online properties with Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your business using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell digital products with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you are required to add a number of legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling through ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

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 companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC regulations.

There are many online business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources to some of these at the end of this article …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to develop social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Site

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

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

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

In addition to the above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the following pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you are not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you may be compensated if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website

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

We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or the footer of your site) so that visitors have access to legal information from every page …

(Display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)

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

• How To Use Widgets In WordPress

Store-Bought Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were written 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 insert your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• 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 page on your website for every 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 server as described previously.

Go here to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using cut & paste legal templates, another option is to use plugins.

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

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you many headaches.

Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit 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 any page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog 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 checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your WordPress dashboard area …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

You can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site dropdown menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – 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

For more details about this useful plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 & Conditions
• 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 site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

Go here for more information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your website to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal page templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and the terms of service and guidelines required by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your digital presence must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.

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 cannot provide legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Resources

Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• BBB – 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

And …

• 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

We hope this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.

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