Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are endorsing or advertising?
As the digital way of life continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s important to try and stay informed about what’s happening and make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also referred to as the BBB. 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)
These laws has legal implications for various business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, including Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t approve digital products for sale, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote many advertising and online marketing networks.
Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
In this article, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website.
Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based in.
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of these situations were to take place:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you will do with their details.
- Someone steals content from your site and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website informing your visitors that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and will receive a financial benefit if they purchase it.
- You have not spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
- Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are misleading and try to sue you.
- You have not disclosed that you received a free copy in your product review.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider now these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk being a target of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog stays legally compliant.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information when using their services and features. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue online with your website with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell digital products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their networks …
(Policy requirements for vendors using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote online using product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.
There are many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See our additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you plan to develop apps for your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, 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 suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Basic Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to consider adding one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets visitors be aware that you will be compensated if they buy through your affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Informs site users that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
- 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legals folder on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that users have access to the information from all your site’s pages …
(Display links to your legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer here:
Using Ready-Made Templates
You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
For more details, go here:
Alternatively, you can download a set of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.
Go here for more information:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear inside your main WordPress dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, review websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site drop down menu)
You can also select from various pre-written legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable legal pages for your digital presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
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 Service
- 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 powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More info:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a legal expert.
We want your website to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and the guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.
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, please note that we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
Additional Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to comply 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
- US Copyright Office
And …
- 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 compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website using inexpensive methods and resources.
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