Category: Management Plugins

If you do any kind of business online, the last thing you want to do is to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

As digital business continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important that you try to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.

Recent 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 need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

The introduction of these laws has ramifications for various business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, like PPC advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

Without 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, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook will reject your applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your site may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be offering online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your online properties become fully compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.

Is Your Site Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you offer on your website or blog

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Are you at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the following incidents were to occur:

• Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your site letting your visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may receive a commission if visitors purchase it.
• You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are misleading and tries to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult information and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider too 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 (including credit card details to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide 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 does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet 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 randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were in breach of 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 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 entirely to the Google program whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s imperative to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and information accessible to your site visitors.

Complying With Third-Party Services

Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will engage with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their services or product features. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your site with Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information products using places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

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 documented on their website, this typically prompts 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 do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website complies with all FTC guidelines.

There are many resources online that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you plan to develop applications for your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Facebook apps 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 websites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, 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 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 if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Compliance Information Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your website falls short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help you keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above, you may want to consider implementing any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users be aware that you are not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you will derive some form of financial or similar type of benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been done, 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 content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legals folder on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

You can then add links to these pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) to ensure that users have access to legal information from every page …

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

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

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets On The Blog Sidebar

Ready-Made Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• 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 added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described previously.

Go here for more info:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can keep things really simple by using a plugin.

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you many headaches.

Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully 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 – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when the user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your navigation menu …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page type menu)

Choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress 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

For more details about using this handy plugin, visit this site:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your digital business …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your business to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal content, or a plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As stated earlier, if you make money online, you need to make sure that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and any guidelines and terms of service for third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.

Being non-compliant 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 do not provide legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

References And Legal Resources

Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC 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
• United States Copyright Office

See Also …

• 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
• Google 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 presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website using simple and cost-effective methods and resources.

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