One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to break the law.
As the digital way of life continues growing at an overwhelming speed and the rules keep changing, it’s important that you stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Better Business Bureau Website)
The introduction of new laws has ramifications for several online business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed into various advertising and online marketing networks.
If your digital presence 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 discuss why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site.
Is Your Website Legally Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law regarding your specific business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider what the implications to your business would be if the scenarios below were to occur:
- A user has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their website.
- You haven’t advised your site visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing that you will earn a sales commission if visitors buy it.
- You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Someone claims the testimonials on your site are false and decides to sue you.
- You did not disclose that you received a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
- Your site includes adult-related information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider now these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- 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, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 with warnings 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 easy it is to risk being targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business remains legally compliant.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
All of the big online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display legal information if using many of their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your website using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information products via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add a number of legal pages before your products can be approved for sale in their networks …
(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to display clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this often 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 type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to and additional references to a number of these at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance
If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue 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 include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site
If you suspect that your web site lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to look into including one or more of the pages listed below where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general health or medical advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets users know that you will not receive any form of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs readers that you may benefit financially if they purchase through your affiliate link.
- Sample/Review Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy 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 Compliance Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can insert these into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your site) so that users have access to the information from all your web pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here to learn more:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, 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 server as previously described.
Go here for more details:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using copy & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using a plugin.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.
Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes 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 will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- 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 terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your main navigation section …
(WP Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, niche websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)
Choose from several built-in 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
Visit the plugin site to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
Learn more here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro 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 – 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
More info:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a lawyer.
We want your site to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal forms, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) of third-party services and products that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your website or blog must comply with a whole range of regulations, 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Legal Resources & References
Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to remain 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
- US 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 presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your site.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)