Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you use or recommend?

As the digital era continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “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 has consequences for various online business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, like Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote many advertising or online marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site are subject to certain legal requirements according to laws that govern online businesses, the importance of complying with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be offering online, and that there are solutions that can help your site become fully compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Is Your Site Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you advertise on your website

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• Someone has a heart attack after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting and could receive a financial benefit if visitors buy it.
• You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are misleading 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 website publishes adult content and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider now the following actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 with warnings 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 you could easily become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and information accessible to site users.

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

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

You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will engage with online.

Here are just some examples:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your WordPress sites with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information-based products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)

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

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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. you should protect your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

A number of business resource sites provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the 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)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you plan to develop applications for your site users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide 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 protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies)

What Legal Information Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and external providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above, you may want to look into including one or more of these legal pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Lets your readers know that you’re not receiving any form of compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Informs site users that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 Site

Ideally, you should 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 add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legal directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages via FTP)

You can then easily add links to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website) so that users have access to legal information from every page …

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

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress using widgets, see this tutorial:

• Using WordPress Widgets

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

Go here for more information:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of cut & paste website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your server as described previously.

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using templates, you can keep things very simple by using plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WP page.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your main WordPress dashboard section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Go here to learn more about using this useful plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress sites containing over twenty customizable compliance templates for your online business …

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 Use
• 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your site to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal documents, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect the rights of 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Additional Resources

Below is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your site may require to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive methods and resources.

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