Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you do business with?

As the digital era continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s absolutely essential that you stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your online presence is an important factor in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

The introduction of new laws affect several online business activities, including:

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

If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not let you list digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising or online merchant networks.

If your website is not compliant, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this guide, we discuss why it’s important to have a compliant website and show you inexpensive resources and solutions that will make your WordPress website or blog legally compliant in minutes.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. As stated previously, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you offer

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if any of the following scenarios were to happen:

• A person suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives people an adverse reaction.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site informing your site visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and will receive a sales commission if they buy using your affiliate link.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are false and tries to sue you because of it.
• You have not disclosed that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your site publishes adult information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider too these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to give everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked 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 notices or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

it’s important to ensure that your website remains legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information if using many of their products and service. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue with your blogs using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your business using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind 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 by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations.

Various business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references to a number of these at the end of this article …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website

If your website is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

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

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

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the pages listed below where applicable:

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

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs readers that you will not receive any form of payment for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs readers that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Explains to site users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, 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 directory via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)

You can then easily add links to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert these into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) so that users will be able to access the information from every web page …

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

If you need help adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar or footer using widgets, see this tutorial:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Legal Templates

You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting websites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here for more info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates)

Cut & Paste website templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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

More info:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

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

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If manually setting up legal pages for your website seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …

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

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

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then be 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 WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)

With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

You can also choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – 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

Go here to learn more this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 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. You can have legal pages 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 sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your business to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal templates, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly 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 stated earlier, if you make money online, it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your digital presence must comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice on our website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

References And Legal Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet legal obligations:

• 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

See 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
• 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 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 legal resources and solutions.

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