One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to break the law.
Online laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of new laws has legal ramifications for various business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising or online marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your site may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be selling on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the plugins that we list further below.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if the following scenarios were to happen:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone an allergic reaction.
- You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with it.
- Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their own site.
- There is no statement on your site telling your site users that you are an affiliate for the product you’re marketing and will get paid a sales commission if visitors end up buying using your link.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
- A visitor claims that the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy of the product you reviewed.
- Your website contains adult content and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider too these actual 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 (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent 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% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 notices 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 easy it is to risk being a target of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business remains fully compliant with the law.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services
Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your site visitors know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you will engage with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display legal information when using their products. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your sites using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products through companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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 is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.
You can find many online business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …
(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you are planning to develop apps that will integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then 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 generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, 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 need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- 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 website.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your site should help you keep out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms And Conditions
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides financial advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your visitors that you will not be receiving any kind of payment for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets users be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content To Your Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, 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 server via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or the footer section of your site) so that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(Display links to legal pages to users on all of your site’s pages)
If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer using widgets, see this tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Go here for more details:
Another option is to purchase a set of website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
These templates were written by an attorney and 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 legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC regulations brought into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.
More info:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
As well as using cut & paste legal templates, you can simplify things by using plugins.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you may be interested in checking out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your website seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Legal 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 basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when the user agrees to your legal terms.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear inside your main WP dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
You can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)
Choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured 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 about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over twenty customizable compliance pages for your digital presence …
Learn more here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro 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 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 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 this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Visit this site to learn more:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your site to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.
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 cannot offer 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 the law concerning your specific business.
Legal Resources & References
Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires 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 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
- US Patent and Trademark Office
- United States Copyright Office
Plus …
- 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 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 and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website.
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