Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are promoting or using?
As digital business continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if having an online presence is an important factor in your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, 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 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 – Better Business Bureau)
The new laws has consequences for various business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. text link ads, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t let you list digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising and online marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive solutions.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws wherever you do business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives someone an allergic reaction.
- You’ve told subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not defined what you’ll do with it.
- Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and could receive a commission if visitors purchase it.
- You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- A visitor claims your testimonials are misleading and tries to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.
Consider now these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 cautions or lose access entirely 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 be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s imperative to make sure that your digital presence stays legally compliant.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with online.
For example:
Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their products. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue online with your blog with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information products with places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale in their marketplace …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies 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 sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to 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 by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Various business resource sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See our additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create apps that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether 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 plan to promote products or services on your site via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you have been wondering whether “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 policies)
What Legal Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Legally Compliant?
If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help your website stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets readers be aware that you’re not receiving any form of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies visitors that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they purchase through your affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors know 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 Legal Content To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually
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 these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder on your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then easily add links to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert these into your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from all your pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Use Store-Bought Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
More info:
Another option is to purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page for each legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
Go here for more info:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste 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 – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using WP Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you many headaches.
Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will 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 page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When a user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your main WordPress dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you create, view and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)
Choose from various pre-configured legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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
To learn more about using this handy plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More information:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with all government regulations and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or offering online. Your website must comply with various laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
Additional Legal Information
Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission 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
Additionally …
- 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website.
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