Category: Engagement Plugins

As a business owner, the last thing you want is to suddenly discover that you have been breaking any laws, rules or regulations.

Internet laws are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines 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 for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

These laws has ramifications for several online business categories, including:

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

If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in a range of advertising or online merchant networks.

If your online business is not compliant, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this article, we look at the importance of having a compliant website and explain simple and cost-effective ways to make your site compliant in minutes.

Is Your Website Breaking The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice about your website or business. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you endorse on your website or blog

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider for a minute what could happen to your business if the scenarios below were to take place:

• A customer has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with it.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site informing visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing that you may derive a commission if they buy it.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are false and decide to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of a product you reviewed.
• Your website contains adult-related information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider now the following real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had broken 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 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 they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site visitors.

Complying With Third-Party Services

Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

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

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their products or features. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your website using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to sell online using testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be 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 documented on their website, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of business 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 interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

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

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

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you plan to develop applications that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, 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 to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

What Compliance Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider implementing one or more of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies users that you will derive some form of financial or similar form of benefit if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets visitors be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

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

We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that visitors have access to the information from every page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar here:

• Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

For more information, visit this site:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a set of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal pages 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 details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

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

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

Go here for more information:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

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

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

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear inside your main WP dashboard section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Choose from various pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 this plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your digital business …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance 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 And Conditions
• 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 site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring lawyers to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your website to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate basic 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 (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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 do not offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements regarding your specific business.

Resources

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website 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
• Better Business Bureau – 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

See Also …

• 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 add essential legal pages to your site.

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