Is your website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you sell or recommend?
Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t protect someone from taking legal action against you.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws affect various business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If you do not display certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If you are not in compliance, you could also end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be selling on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugins that we list further below.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if the situations below were to take place:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement informing subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with the information you have collected.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making your site users aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and will get paid a financial benefit if visitors purchase it.
- You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Online visitors claim that your testimonials are false and decide to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider also these real examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he is now required to give a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — 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 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 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk being targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website stays fully compliant with the law.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and professional 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 your site to display legal information when using many of their products or service. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue online with your website using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your business through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC regulations.
There are many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to create apps for your website users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting anything online as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
What Legal Information Should You Add To Your Website To Be Legally Compliant?
If your web site lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider implementing one or more of these legal pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general health or medical information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the right disclosures to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you will not receive for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets site users know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal directory to your 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 a link to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert these into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu here:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared website forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
More information:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & 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 each legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described earlier.
More info:
WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using copy & paste legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page 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 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, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WP page.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your dashboard area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)
With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
Select from several pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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
Visit this site to learn more about this handy plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your site …
For an in-depth article about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here to learn more:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your site to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal content, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As stated earlier, if you make money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or advertising online. Your digital presence must comply with numerous regulations, 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 do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
References And Resources
Below is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- 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
- US Copyright Office
Additionally …
- 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 compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple resources and plugins.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now