Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are selling or promoting?
Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Anyone who owns a website 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 websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, 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). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)
The new laws affect several online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could face a number 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 site are required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be selling online, and that there are solutions that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the tools listed further below.
Is Your Site Breaking The Law?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated above, the aim of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern business practices online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you promote on your website
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if the situations below were to happen:
- Someone has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
- You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you plan to do with the information you have collected.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site telling your site users that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and will derive a commission if they buy through your affiliate link.
- You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are misleading and decides to sue you as a result.
- You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in your product review.
- Your site includes adult information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.
Consider too these real examples 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 info to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped 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 marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program 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 risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website is fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Services
Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You are obligated to let your site users know that your business complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you engage with online.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information when using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products with companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their network …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
Various business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources to a number of these at the end of this article …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you are planning to create social networking applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to your legal pages …
(Apps for social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have ever wondered 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, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
Essential Legal Pages To Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to consider including any of these legal pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your readers know that you will not receive compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies your visitors that you may benefit financially if they purchase through your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Lets users know that you have been 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 satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors have access to the information from all pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer here:
Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared website forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
To learn more, go here:
Another option is to download a set of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & 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 for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users that you may be interested in checking out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal 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 mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely 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 other WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your 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 other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your WP dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
You can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)
Choose from several pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress 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
Visit this website to learn more about the benefits of using this useful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more:
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 of Service
- 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
To learn more, visit this website:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider at least implementing some type of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your business to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with all legal requirements and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole set of regulations, many 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.
Additional Information
Below is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to remain 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 – Better Business Bureau
- 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
In Addition …
- Google 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum