Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you do business with?
As the digital way of life continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your digital presence is an integral factor in your 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 website for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also referred to as the BBB. Search online “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)
These laws has legal ramifications for various business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, including Google AdWords or AdSense
- 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 like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your site may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be using on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you endorse on your website or blog
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Consider what could happen to your business if any of these situations were to take place:
- A user suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people skin rashes.
- You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you plan to do with their details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re marketing and could receive a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund and return policies.
- A visitor claims that your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you because of it.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult content and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider too these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $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 marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 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 entirely to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily become exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s vitally important to make sure that your digital presence remains fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You must let your site visitors know that your website complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using their products or features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your websites using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell digital products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for selling via their networks …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially when concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted 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 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 plan to 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. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.
Various business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources at the end of this article …
(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or using Google AdWords pay-per-click ads to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- 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)
What Legal Information Does Your Website Need To Be Legally Compliant?
If your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your website stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to consider including one or more of these compliance pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides financial information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs site users that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets visitors be aware that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs visitors that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets your 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or the footer of your site) so that visitors can access legal information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress here:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Visit this site to learn more:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website 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 the pages to your web server as previously described.
Go here for more information:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress websites you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time.
Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your navigation area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, review sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)
You can also choose from several pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
Go here to learn more this handy plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)
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 Use
- 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 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 license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here to learn more:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some kind of basic legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a solicitor.
We want your site to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site is compliant with all government laws and regulations and any terms of service and guidelines required by 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your website or blog must comply with a whole set of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Additional Legal Information
Here is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission 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
And …
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add legal pages to your website using simple methods and resources.
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