Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you do business with?

As the cybersphere continues growing at an overwhelming speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if your digital presence plays an important part in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. 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 – BBB)

These laws has legal implications for several business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in a range of advertising or online merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog may be subject to legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you may be recommending on your website, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your site become fully compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations in your country or region.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

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

• A person has a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives someone skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you will do with it.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• You haven’t advised your site visitors that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you will derive a financial benefit if they decide to buy through your affiliate link.
• You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are false and decides to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website publishes adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.

Consider too the real case studies of costly compliance breaches described:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to give 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 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 using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had breached 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• 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 site users.

Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

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

You are required to let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will interact with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their services. This includes using services like Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your website with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell digital products with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for selling via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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 interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations.

You can find many resources online that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you plan to develop social networking applications for your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, 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 to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

What Compliance Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?

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

Adding the following legal pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-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
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above pages, you may want to consider implementing any of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general information about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you are not receiving any type of compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you will benefit financially if they purchase through your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Informs site users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets site users know that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

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

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

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) so that users have access to the information from every web page …

(Display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this tutorial:

• How To Use Widgets

Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

Go here for more details:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• 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 site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described previously.

For more details, go here:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

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

Here are some legal WordPress plugins you may be interested in using:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages instead …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you a great deal of time.

Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of 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 clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily 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 just like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your main dashboard menu section …

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

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)

You can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site drop down menu)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 site to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 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 site. Your legal pages can be 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 websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a legal expert.

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal page templates, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website is compliant with government legal requirements and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by third-party products and services that you may be promoting or advertising online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Resources

Here is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC 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
• US Copyright Office

Also …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• 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 legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using inexpensive methods and resources.

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