Is your website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are promoting or using?
As the internet continues to grow at such a rapid pace and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if having an online presence plays an important role in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection 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 for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
These laws affect several online business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into various advertising and online marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
In this guide, we discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.
Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you offer
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
- Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your website letting your site visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you may earn financial benefits if visitors purchase it.
- You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed that you were given a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
- Your site contains adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider now the real case studies of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. 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 independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 easy it is to risk being targeted for litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
it’s important to do whatever is necessary 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
Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your site users know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with online.
For example:
Google requires you to display legal information when using many of their services and features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your online properties with Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information-based products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
New 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 flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of money-making activity 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 interests by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations.
You can find many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to develop applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site via affiliate marketing, or making money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website
If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to look into including one or more of these compliance pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you will not receive for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Informs users that you will receive compensation if they buy through your affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets visitors know that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets users know 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then easily add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
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 all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that visitors can access legal information from all your pages …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer here:
Using Store-Bought Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here to learn more:
Alternatively, you can download a set of cut & paste website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates)
Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website 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 previously described.
For more information, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using templates, you can keep things really simple using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress-driven sites worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If the idea of creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages:
- Pre-written 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 around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will be 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 WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when the user agrees to your terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear inside your navigation area …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Type of Site menu)
You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin site:
Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
total website compliance & disclaimer solution …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 Use
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.
More info:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some form of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be protected!
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-drafted legal templates, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.
Additional Resources
Below is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- BBB – 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
Plus …
- 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website or blog using simple resources and solutions.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)