Category: Engagement Plugins

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

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

(Better Business Bureau Website)

The introduction of new laws affect several business categories, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in various advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

This article explains the importance of having a compliant website and provides simple and cost-effective ways that will help make your site legally compliant in minutes.

Does Your Website 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 a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you use on your website or blog

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider for a moment what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A person has a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you plan to do with it.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog telling visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you are recommending that you will get paid an affiliate commission if they purchase it.
• You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are misleading and try to sue you.
• You have not disclosed that you have received a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
• Your site publishes adult information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• 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 private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 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 in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to make sure that your website or blog stays fully compliant with the law.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies

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

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

Here are just some examples:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal 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 money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.

You can find many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources 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 create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies)

What Legal Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider adding one or more of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Informs site users that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Explains to users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your readers that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy 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 Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you will consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legals directory in your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …

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

You can then easily add links to these pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

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

(It’s important to display legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using Widgets In WordPress

Use Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms)

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 add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

You can either create a new 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 the pages to your server as previously described.

More info:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

Here are some great WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you many headaches.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you 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 Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

This lets you create, view and edit 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 online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Choose from various built-in 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

Visit the plugin website to learn more about using this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal pages for your website …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

Legal Suite Pro 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 less than one minute 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).

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a legal expert.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal content, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator lets you 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 do business online, it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service required by 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or advertising online. Your website must comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even 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, we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. 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 the law pertaining to your business.

Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

Plus …

• Google 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website or blog.

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