Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you are promoting or selling?

As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your site remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant part in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau)

These laws has ramifications for various business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, e.g. display advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into most advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

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

This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and describes inexpensive methods that will make your WordPress site compliant in minutes.

Is Your Website Legally Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice about your website or business. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you promote on your website

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if these scenarios were to happen:

• A person has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you will do with it.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site users know that you are an affiliate for the product you’re selling and could derive an affiliate commission if visitors buy using your affiliate link.
• You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Online visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult-related content and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children 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 their personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a massive $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 prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming targeted for litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s vitally important to ensure that your digital presence is fully compliant with the law.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will interact with online.

For example:

Google requires your site to display legal information if using many of their products and features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your WordPress site using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add certain legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of selling 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 ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

Many resources online provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance

If you plan to create applications that will integrate with your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

Basic Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-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 Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your readers know that you will not receive compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you will derive some form of financial or similar form of benefit if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets site users be aware that you were 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 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 WordPress Site

Ideally, you should have your 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 Web Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legals folder in your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can add these to your WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) so that visitors can access the information from all of your pages …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer in WordPress here:

• How To Use Widgets

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)

More information:

• FindLegalForms.com

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

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

These templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.

Visit this site to learn more:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Pages – Plugins

As well as using templates, you can keep things really simple by using plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If manually creating legal pages for your website seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WP Legal Pages instead …

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

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes 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 clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can 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 check box and delete and manage these like any WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when user agrees to your terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your main WordPress dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from the admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)

You can also select from several pre-written 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 this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 – 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal documentation, or a plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you make money online, it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website or blog must comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some 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 do not offer legal advice here. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• FTC 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

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
• 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website using inexpensive legal resources and solutions.

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