Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are advertising or recommending?
As digital business continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you try to stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your site remains compliant, especially if your digital presence is an essential factor in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites 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 consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “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 new laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, including Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
More importantly, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on this website. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for a moment what could happen to your business if these scenarios were to take place:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not defined what you plan to do with their details.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site letting your site users know that you are an affiliate for the product you are marketing and could receive a sales commission if they purchase using your link.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you because of it.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site publishes adult content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider too these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. 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 children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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 chosen at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 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 Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to ensure that your website remains fully compliant with the law.
Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
All the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.
For example:
Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their services or product features. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your WordPress sites using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online using places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site 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 flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your website complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.
A number of online business resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide 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 create applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about your legal pages …
(Social networking apps 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Essential Legal Pages To Add To Your Website
If your web site lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help your website stay out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider adding any of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets visitors be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Informs visitors that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you were 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should consult a lawyer 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 Web Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals folder in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer menu here:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
For more information, go here:
Another option is to download a package of cut & paste legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages 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 legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC 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 on your website for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
For more details, go here:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WP page.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Type of Site dropdown menu)
Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over twenty customizable compliance pages for your web presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 Service
- 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More information:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website 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 page templates, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, 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 plan to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines required by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website doesn’t comply 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
Additional Legal Information
Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
Also …
- 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
Hopefully, 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 legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com