Category: WordPress Configuration

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

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

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection 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 to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau)

The new laws affect various online business categories, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in many advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your site(s) may be required to comply with certain legalities, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be selling on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugins that we discuss further below.

Is Your Website Breaking The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of these situations were to happen:

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are endorsing that you will derive a sales commission if visitors decide to purchase through your affiliate link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Visitors claim your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too these documented 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 (including credit card information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 entirely to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to make sure that your website or blog complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are required to let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with online.

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your blogs using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your business via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information products through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations.

There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring 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 …

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

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your website users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help you keep out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider adding any of the pages listed below if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms (if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Discloses to site users that you will not receive compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample Or review Copy – Disclosure that informs site users that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors be aware that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Content To Your WordPress Site

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

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legals directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert these into your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) so that users can access legal information from every web page …

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

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar Navigation Area

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more details, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a set of website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were created 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 add your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (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 for every legal form you want added 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.

To learn more, go here:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.

Here are some plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs you may be interested in using:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your website seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.

Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then 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 page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your dashboard area …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

You can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)

Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WordPress 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:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

To learn more about the plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(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 – 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. You can have legal pages 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.

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a solicitor.

We want your site to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate essential 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 are making money online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even 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. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

Resources

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

• FTC 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

Also …

• 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site.

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