Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are selling or promoting?

As the digital era continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having an online presence plays an important role in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, then 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). 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 introduction of new laws affect various business categories, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t approve digital products for sale, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you will not be accepted into many advertising or online merchant networks.

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

In this guide, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.

Is Your Website Breaking The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you will do with their details.
• Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your site letting your visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re marketing and may derive a financial benefit if they purchase it.
• You did not spell out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims that the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you because of it.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many internet 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% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could become exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information accessible to all you site visitors.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with.

For example:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their products. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your website with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell products online via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New 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 often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to 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. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

A number of resources online provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See our additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to create apps that will integrate with your website, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites 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 companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then 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, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their 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, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)

Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

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

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into adding any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors know that you will not receive any form of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to users that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

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

We recommend adding a legal directory to your 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 a link to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website

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

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

We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar using widgets here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Sidebar

Store-Bought Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

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

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• 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 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 the pages to your server as previously described.

Visit this site to learn more:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time.

Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

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

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

This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from your admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)

You can also select from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – 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

Go here to learn more this great plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

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 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 one minute or less and the license allows 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 legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some form of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a legal firm.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal forms, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate necessary 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 do any type of business online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site complies with all government regulations and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or advertising online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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 offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Additional Resources

Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to remain compliant and meet 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 Website
• 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
• United States Copyright Office

In Addition …

• 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

We hope this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website using simple legal resources and plugins.

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