Category: Management Plugins

As a business owner, the last thing you want is to learn the hard way that you have been breaking rules or regulations.

As the digital way of life continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also referred to as the BBB. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

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

The introduction of these new laws affect several business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, like text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t approve digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you won’t be accepted into many advertising and online marketing networks.

Additionally, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

This article explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and describes simple methods and solutions to help make your WordPress site legally compliant quickly and easily.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated previously, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose products or services you use

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A person has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate marketer gives people an adverse reaction.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site telling your site users that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may earn a sales commission if visitors end up buying via your affiliate link.
• You didn’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
• A visitor claims that the testimonials on your site are all fake and decides to sue you as a result.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site contains adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too these documented 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 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 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 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% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two 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 cautions or lose access entirely to the Google program with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

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

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog is legally compliant.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

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

You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with online.

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information if using their services or features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue online with your WordPress sites with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell digital products via places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product sellers)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell products and services online with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners for breaches of regulation 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 chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

You can find many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the 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)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create social networking applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various 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 organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay 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 to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

What Legal Pages Should I Add To My Site To Be Compliant?

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

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

In addition to the above, you may want to look into including one or more of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides financial information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Discloses to users that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you may benefit financially if they purchase through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website

Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

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 your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that users have access to the information from every web page …

(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your website’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your WordPress Blog Sidebar

Use Ready-Made Templates

You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

More information:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a set of legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using cut & paste templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress websites and blogs you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …

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

Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin:

• 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 legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your main navigation menu …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Page Type)

Select from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 using this WordPress plugin, visit this website:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …

Learn more here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 & Conditions
• 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your website to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations and the terms of service and guidelines of third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet 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
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB
• 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 …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.

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