Category: Engagement Plugins

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

As the cybersphere continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital that you try to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if having an online presence plays a significant role in your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “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 has legal implications for several online business categories, including:

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

If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t approve digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in most advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website or blog may be required to comply with various legalities according to laws that govern business practices online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be offering on your site, and that there are plugins for WordPress that can help your websites become compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you promote

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with it.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your visitors know that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you will derive a commission if they purchase using your link.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your refund and return policies.
• Visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are misleading and decide to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
• Your site publishes adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider now 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 personal information (including credit card details to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• 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 prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, 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 broken 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies 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 non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

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

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies

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

You are obligated to let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will do business with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information if using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your WordPress blog with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your business through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell products online with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially if you plan to sell products and services online with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines.

Many business resource sites provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to useful and additional references to a number of these at the end of this article …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to create applications that integrate with your site, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, 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’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

What Legal Information Pages Should I Add To My Site To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?

If your website falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues):

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

In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the following pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides advice about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (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 – Discloses to readers that you are not receiving compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to users that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Lets site users be aware that you have been 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 satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer 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 typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add these to your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from every web page …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu here:

• How To Use Widgets

Use Store-Bought Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut and paste website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• 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 every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described earlier.

Visit this website to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress users 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 installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you a great deal of time.

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

• Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your main navigation menu …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)

You can also choose from various pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 powerful plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your business to be legally safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic 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 do business online, you need to make sure that your site complies with all government regulations and the guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or recommending 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.

Additional Information

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB
• 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
• 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 above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and inexpensive legal resources and solutions.

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