Category: Management Plugins

Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you do business with?

As the cybersphere continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules keep changing, it’s absolutely vital that you stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having an online presence is a significant factor in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws has legal ramifications for several online business activities, including:

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

If you do not display certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t approve digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in many advertising and 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!

In this guide, we discuss the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations in your country or region.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a minute what would happen to your business if any of the following scenarios were to happen:

• A customer has a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you plan to do with it.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own site.
• You have not divulged to visitors that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you could earn an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your website publishes adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider now these real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• 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 private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a website owner can easily be exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to ensure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and information displayed to all you site visitors.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies

Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are expected to let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you interact with.

For example:

Google requires websites to display certain information when using many of their services or features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your sites with Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See our additional references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to create apps for your site users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networks also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you are 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 generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site 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 to avoid 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 protect yourself and your business interests.

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

Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website

If your website is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and third-party service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into adding any of the pages listed below where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general money-making advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you will not receive compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your readers that you may receive compensation if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re writing about by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your visitors that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
• 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.

Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you should consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in standard web page formatting (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 HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)

You can then easily add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) so that users can access the information from all pages …

(Display links to legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using WordPress Widgets

Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Visit this site for more details:

• FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These 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 pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

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

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using copy & paste templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress-powered sites worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.

Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your main dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

You have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site drop down menu)

Select from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal pages for your website …

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro 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 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a solicitor.

We want your site to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal content, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines for 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. 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 in your country or region.

Additional Information

Here is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to stay compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

Also …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• Google 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website or blog.

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