Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you sell or promote?

As digital business continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your online presence plays an important part in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws affect several business activities, including:

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

If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

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

In this article, we discuss the importance of having a compliant website and present inexpensive ways to help make your WordPress site legally compliant in minutes.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you promote on your website

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider what could happen to your business if any of these situations were to occur:

• Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will 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 visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling and may earn financial benefits if visitors end up purchasing via your link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Your visitors claim that your testimonials are false and try to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed that you received a free copy in a product review.
• Your site publishes adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider now the following documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two 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 entirely to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s imperative to make sure that your website or blog complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services

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

You must let your site users know that your business complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information when using their services and features. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add legal pages to your website before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.

A number of online business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …

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

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to create social networking applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display 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, 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)

Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site

If your website falls short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

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

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into including any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you will not receive any form of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to readers that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets readers know that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

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 adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that users can access the information from all your pages …

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

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

• How To Use WordPress Widgets

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

To learn more, visit this website:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use plugins.

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

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If the idea of creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.

Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks only when the user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

Select from various pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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

Visit this website for more information about the benefits of using this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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 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 this plugin on all of your websites.

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type 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 software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do any type of business online, you need to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or offering 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no 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 pertaining to your business.

Additional Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

See 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

We hope this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive methods and resources.

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