Category: Engagement Plugins

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

Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse 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 website for commercial gain, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws affect various business activities, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote many advertising and online merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website or blog may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be using online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the plugins that we list further below.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations in your country or region.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider for one minute what would happen to your business if any of the following situations were to happen:

• A person has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives people an adverse reaction.
• You’ve told subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you will receive an affiliate commission if they buy via your affiliate link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund or return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are all fake and decides to sue you as a result.
• You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your website includes adult information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider also the following real 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 (including credit card details to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• 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 private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 notices or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the violation, 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 litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

You need to make sure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site visitors.

Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your websites with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale in their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of business 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 making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.

You can find many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you plan to develop applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about your legal pages …

(Apps for social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online via affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all 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, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

What Legal Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Protected From Legal Compliance Issues?

If you suspect that your web site is falling short in terms 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 consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into including one or more of the following pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the correct type of content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs your readers that you are not receiving any form of compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to visitors that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Lets readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your readers 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 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 Content To Your Site

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

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

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

(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)

You can then add links to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …

(WordPress Menu)

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

(Display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress here:

• Using Widgets

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting websites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Visit this site to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to purchase a package of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described previously.

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using cut & paste templates, another option is to use plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• 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!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any page on your site.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your WP dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)

Choose from various pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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

To learn more about this handy plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over 20 customizable legal page templates for your website …

To learn more about the plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 And Conditions
• 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 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of 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 website to be legally safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and the guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law regarding your specific business.

Legal Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:

• 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
• 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
• Google 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website.

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