Category: WordPress Configuration

Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are doing business with?

As digital business continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to try and stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your site remains legal, especially if having a digital presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

• Any form of advertising, including contextual ads
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

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

This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and presents inexpensive ways that will help make your website legally compliant in minutes.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations in your country or region.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be if the scenarios below were to occur:

• A user suffers a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people an adverse reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website making your visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and could derive a commission if visitors purchase it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are fake and try to sue you.
• You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
• Your site publishes adult information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider also the following 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 (including credit card details to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $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 prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many 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 randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had infringed 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 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 easy it is to risk becoming a target of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

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

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

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

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information if using their products. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your blogs with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

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

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.

Many business resource sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …

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

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

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

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “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 third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site is falling short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider adding one or more of these compliance pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• 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)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors be aware that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample Or review Copy – Discloses to visitors that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• 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.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal verbiage 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 directory on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from all of your pages …

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

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

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In Your Website

Use Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a package of website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described previously.

More information:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some great plugins for WordPress-driven websites worth looking into:

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 WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog 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 check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when user agrees to your legal terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

This lets you view, create and edit your 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 types of sites, such as business websites with products, review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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

Visit this website to learn more about this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable compliance pages for your online presence …

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro 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 And Conditions
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your site to be safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with all regulations and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your internet presence must comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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 provide no legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site 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
• Better Business Bureau Website
• 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

See 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
• 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using simple and cost-effective legal resources and solutions.

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