Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are promoting or selling?

Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws affect various business activities, including:

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

If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you won’t be accepted into various advertising and affiliate marketing 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!

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website are subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be offering on your site, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress website owners that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you advertise on your website

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to happen:

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you’ll do with it.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website making your site visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and will earn a commission if they decide to purchase through your link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund and return policies.
• Visitors claim that your testimonials are false and try to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy of the product in your review.
• Your website contains adult-related content and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too these documented case studies 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. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ 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 violation 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 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 they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to site visitors.

Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Leading online companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will engage with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display legal information when using many of their products and service. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your blogs using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt 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 kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

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

(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you plan to develop applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to 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)

Basic Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website

If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help you keep out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms & 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 these pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs visitors that you will not receive any form of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your readers know that you will receive compensation if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Informs users that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website

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

We recommend creating a legal folder on your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website

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

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

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets On The Blog Sidebar

Using Ready-Made Templates

You can find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (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 on your website for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described earlier.

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use a plugin.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress sites you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you loads of headaches.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes 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 a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

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

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page type dropdown menu)

You can also select from several built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

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

Go here to learn more:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Website 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 Use
• 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. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a legal expert.

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided 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 the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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 are not providing legal advice here. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Legal Resources

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

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission 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

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
• AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
• ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
• Facebook Platform Policies

We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site using inexpensive methods and solutions.

***