Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose services or products you are advertising or endorsing?
As the digital way of life continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence plays a significant role in your business strategy.
Recent 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, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws affect several business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
In addition, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this guide, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and show you inexpensive resources and solutions that will help make your WordPress website or blog compliant quickly and easily.
Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you use
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be if the situations below were to take place:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you will do with it.
- Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their own site.
- There is no statement on your website informing your site users that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you may receive a financial benefit if visitors purchase it.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you as a result.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider now the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how a business owner can easily be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to make sure that your website or blog complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies
Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your site users know that your website complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will engage with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their products. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your WordPress sites using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense policy requirements)
And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell digital products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted 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 will most likely prompt 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 kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
You can find many resources online that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to develop social networking applications for your site users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or make money online 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 are required to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- 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 litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?
If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into including any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets site users know that you’re not receiving any type of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets visitors know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some way 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.
How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, 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 folder (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in 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 admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that users have access to the information from all pages …
(It’s important to display legal information to users on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar, refer to this tutorial:
Using Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and website forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
Go here for more details:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut and paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service & 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 WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described earlier.
For more information, go here:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, you can keep things very simple using a plugin.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you loads of headaches.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your main dashboard section …
(WP Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, niche websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)
You can also choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress 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
Go here for more information about the benefits of using this useful plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over 20 customizable legal pages for your online presence …
Learn more here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
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 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
More information:
If hiring lawyers to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your business to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal documents, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online, it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or advertising online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
References And Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet its 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
- Better Business Bureau – 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
- United States Copyright Office
Additionally …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site using simple legal resources and solutions.
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