Category: Engagement Plugins

Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you endorse or offer?

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

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

The introduction of new laws affect various online business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will disapprove web applications, and you will not be accepted into a number of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be recommending on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your websites become compliant, such as the plugins that we list further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer 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 certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you endorse

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider for a moment what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you’ll do with it.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog informing your site users that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re recommending that you could derive a financial benefit if they purchase it.
• You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Visitors claim your testimonials are fake and decide to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you received a free copy in a product review.
• Your site includes adult content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider now these actual 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 to complete a debt reduction 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 children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two 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 they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming a target of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords User
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

it’s important to ensure that your website remains legally compliant.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies

All the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will engage with.

For example:

Google requires websites to display certain information if using many of their products. This includes using services like Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your WordPress site using Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

Or promoting your services through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for selling digital products through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

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 documented on their website, this typically results in 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 type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations.

You can find many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance

If you are planning to create apps that will integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

What Legal Pages Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your site keep out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into including any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you are not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to site users that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in typical web page formatting (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 (e.g. via FTP) …

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

You can then easily add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that users will be able to access the information from every page …

(Display legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)

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

• Adding And Configuring Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar

Using Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a package of website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates)

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

For more details, go here:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium 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 benefits of using WP Legal Pages:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear inside your main WordPress dashboard menu section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Type of Site dropdown menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over 20 customizable legal templates for your online presence …

Learn We’ve written an in-depth review of this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(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 Plugin – 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro

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 assistance.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential 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 are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines required by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or selling online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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 are not offering legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Additional Legal Information

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

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

In Addition …

• Google 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.

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