Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are promoting or advertising?
As the digital way of life continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important that you try to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if your web presence plays a significant part in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial 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 BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws affect various online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, including pay-per-click advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t approve digital products for sale, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed into many advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
This article explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website.
Is Your Site Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives someone an adverse reaction.
- You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and could get paid a financial benefit if they decide to buy via your affiliate link.
- You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund or return policies.
- Someone claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and tries to sue you because of it.
- You did not disclose that you were given a free copy of the product in your review.
- Your site contains adult-related content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.
Consider also these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. 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 children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet 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 websites picked at random, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to ensure that your website or blog remains fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information when using many of their services or product features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your WordPress sites using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or 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. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations.
Various business resource sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the additional references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you plan to develop apps for your website, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Apps for social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon 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 protect yourself and your website.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your website falls short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your site keep out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into adding one or more of these pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides advice about financial areas or income opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs site users that you will not receive any form of payment for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you may benefit financially if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample/Review Copy – Informs your readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets visitors be aware that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Content To Your Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals folder in your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that visitors will be able to access legal information from all your pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets here:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)
More information:
Another option is to purchase a package of legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates)
These legal templates 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 pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described previously.
Go here to learn more:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other page on your website.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type menu)
Choose from a number of pre-configured 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 this plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs that contains over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your website …
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(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 Use
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro – 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.
Go here for more details:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some kind of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a legal expert.
We want your business to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal documentation, or a legal pages plugin as described in the 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 Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any type of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by third-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.
Legal Resources
Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to 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
- 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
In Addition …
- Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
- Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
- 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)