Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress site legal? 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 do business with?

As the digital realm continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if having a digital presence is an important factor in your overall business strategy.

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, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory 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 to learn more.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The introduction of new laws has legal consequences for several online business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, e.g. text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote many advertising and online merchant networks.

If your business online is not in compliance, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you may be offering on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

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

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the situations below were to happen:

• Someone has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives a number of users skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with the information you’ve collected.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling and could get paid a financial benefit if they end up purchasing using your link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims that your testimonials are all fake and decides to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider also the following real 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 a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many internet 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 in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program 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 Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s vitally important to make sure that your digital presence is legally compliant.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

All of the big online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

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

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their services or product features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your websites using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their network …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – 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 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 companies 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 any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations.

You can find many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site users, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve 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 websites require you to comply with their policies)

What Compliance Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Compliant?

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

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs readers that you will not receive compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you will benefit financially if they buy through your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets readers know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs readers that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors know 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.

Adding Legal Content To Your Site

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

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legal directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)

You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors can access legal information from all your web pages …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Site

Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more information, go here:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut and paste legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

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

Go here for more info:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some plugins for WordPress-powered sites that you may be interested in using:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WP page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• 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 or post lockdown. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your dashboard menu …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type dropdown menu)

Choose from various pre-configured 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

To learn more about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over twenty customizable legal pages for your online business …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

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 And Conditions
• 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator 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 we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any type of business online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, 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 are not providing 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 all legal requirements regarding your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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
• United States Copyright Office

Additionally …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website or blog using simple and inexpensive legal resources and WordPress plugins.

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