Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you do business with?
Online laws and regulations are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells 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 your business.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws has ramifications for several business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, including contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed into most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
If you are not in compliance, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This guide explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and shows you simple resources and solutions to help make your WordPress website compliant quickly and easily.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws wherever you do business.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if any of these situations were to happen:
- A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
- You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
- There is no statement on your website telling visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may get paid a financial benefit if visitors end up buying through your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider also these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their 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 without users’ 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, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 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 being targeted for litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s vitally important to ensure that your website or blog complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies
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 business complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you will engage with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display certain information if using their services and features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your blog with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products through companies 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 sale …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
A number of online resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …
(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These
If you are planning to develop applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networks 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., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, 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 shut down.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Information Does Your Website Need To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If your website or blog is falling short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into including any of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you are not being paid for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your readers that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review/Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Lets readers be aware that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website
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 adding a legals directory to your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then add a link to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) so that users can access the information from all of your pages …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer in WordPress using widgets, see this tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
To learn more, go here:
Another option is to download a set of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new page on your website for each 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 described previously.
Go here for more information:
Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages)
If manually creating legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – 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 lock down. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your main navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
You have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)
You can also select from several pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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 the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, visit this site:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin
total website compliance and disclaimer solution …
For a detailed article about this plugin go here:
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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more info:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your business to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal documents, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, 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, you need to ensure that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party services and products that you may be promoting or advertising online. Your website must comply with various 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.
Resources
Here is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its 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 Website
- 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
Additionally …
- 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 legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your website.
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