Category: Engagement Plugins

One of the worst predicaments a business owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect someone from taking legal action against you.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. 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 – Better Business Bureau)

The introduction of new laws has legal ramifications for several business categories, including:

• Any kind of advertising, including text link ads, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (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 list your digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising or online marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

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 businesses online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be recommending online, and that there are plugins for WordPress that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?

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

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider what could happen to your business if any of the situations below were to take place:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with the details you’ve collected.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website informing your site visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and will receive a commission if visitors purchase it.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and try to sue you.
• You have not disclosed that you received a free copy in a product review.
• Your website contains adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider too the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 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 non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords User
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s vitally 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.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Compliance with third-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your website using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially when 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 businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically 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 kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.

A number of resources online provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide references to some of these at the end of this article …

(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything online via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Website

If you suspect that your website is falling short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help your site stay out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the correct type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs readers that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Informs your visitors that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legal folder on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …

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

You can then easily add a link to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can insert these into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from all pages …

(It’s important to display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)

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

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Site

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Visit this site for more information:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a set of website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.

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

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, 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 premium plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then 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 other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will be added to your main WordPress dashboard menu …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

You can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type dropdown menu)

You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WP 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

To learn more about this handy plugin, visit this site:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

Go here for more information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your site to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with all laws and regulations and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or use online. Your website must comply with a wide range 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?

Legal 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 legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.

References And Resources

Below is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to stay 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
• 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

Also …

• 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 legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.

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