Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are offering or endorsing?

As the digital way of life continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to try and stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is a fundamental part of your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you must 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). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws has legal consequences for various business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

If your website is not in compliance, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this article, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and provide inexpensive resources and solutions to help make your WordPress site compliant.

Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice on this website. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws wherever you do business.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Consider for one minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A person suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you plan to do with the details you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your site visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may derive financial benefits if visitors buy it.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you.
• You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website publishes adult-related content and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too the following real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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 websites chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 violated, 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 through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

it’s important to make sure that your website complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in many countries emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are obligated to let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue online with your websites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

And even promoting your business through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their network …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often prompts 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 type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages 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 display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

Basic Legal Pages To Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your site stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

As well as the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right disclosures to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you will not receive for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs your readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Lets readers know 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Site

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

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

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

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

You can then add a link to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors have access to legal information from every page …

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

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets In The WordPress Blog Sidebar Area

Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

To learn more, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a set of cut & paste legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.

More info:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you may be interested in checking out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably 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 time.

Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Templates – Includes 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 need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content 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 page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

With WPLegal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, niche sites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)

Select from several 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

Go here to learn more about using this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your site …

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 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 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 this plugin on all of your websites.

Visit this site to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a lawyer.

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal forms, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential 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 make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with all legal requirements and the guidelines and terms of service provided by third-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website doesn’t comply 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. Do 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.

Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• 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
• 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
• United States Copyright Office

See Also …

• 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your site using simple legal resources and WordPress plugins.

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