Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you sell or recommend?
Online laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t excuse someone from taking legal action against you.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection 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 to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
The new laws has legal implications for several business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. pay-per-click advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants 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 reject your applications, and you won’t be accepted into various advertising and online marketing networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This article explains the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog.
Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider what would happen to your business if any of these situations were to occur:
- A customer has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting your visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing that you could earn a commission if they buy it.
- You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund or return policies.
- Online visitors claim your testimonials are false and try to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult-related content and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider now these actual case studies 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 his offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to give a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 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% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 with warnings 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 become exposed to the risk of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
All of the big online companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site 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.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires websites to display certain information if using many of their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your blogs using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online using companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add various legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically 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 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. you should protect your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
Many business resource sites provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you are planning to develop social networking applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, 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 - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)
Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into including any of the following pages:
- 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 or blog provides money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets users be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs visitors 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 satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory on your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that visitors can access the information from all your pages …
(Display links to your legal information to users on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer in WordPress using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Using Store-Bought Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More info:
Another option is to download a package of website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates)
Cut & Paste website legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal forms 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 (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
- 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 page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described earlier.
Go here for more details:
Plugins – Legal Pages
In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use plugins.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing WP Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then 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 every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear in your WordPress dashboard section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)
Choose from several pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 useful plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs that contains over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your online business …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(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 & 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.
Go here for more info:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or a legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with all government legal requirements and any guidelines and terms of service provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website isn’t compliant 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, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.
Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission 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
- United States 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
- 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 compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website using simple resources and solutions.
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