Category: Management Plugins

If you plan to grow a successful business online, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

As the digital economy continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if having an online presence is an integral part of your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau)

The introduction of new laws has legal ramifications for various online business categories, including:

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

Without 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 will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising and online marketing networks.

If your business online is not in compliance, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website or blog are required to comply with various legalities, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be using on your site, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become fully compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. As stated above, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose services or products you endorse on your website

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

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

• Someone has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an adverse reaction.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you will do with the information you’ve collected.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site letting your site users know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are recommending that you will receive financial benefits if they end up buying using your affiliate link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are misleading 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 website includes adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider too the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to give everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• 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 $$$ 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% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach 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 notices or lose access 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 being targeted for non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to ensure that your online business remains legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Services

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

You are expected to let your site visitors know that your website complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information when using many of their services and product features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

Or promoting your services or products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell products online via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add a number of legal pages before your products are approved for selling via their networks …

(Policy requirements for selling products via ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, 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 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 by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines.

Many online business resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the additional references and useful 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 Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to develop applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products online via affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their 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 avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Website

If you suspect that your website lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help your business stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into adding one or more of these legal pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general health or medical information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you will not receive any kind of compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your readers that you may be compensated if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Informs visitors that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content 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 folder to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can insert these into your WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …

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

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar, refer to this tutorial:

• Using Widgets

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more details, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a package of cut and paste website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

These templates 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 add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

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

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

More info:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using cut & paste templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-driven sites you may be interested in checking out:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your main navigation area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)

You can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Type of Site menu)

Select from a number of pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – Built-In 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 this handy plugin, visit this site:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Compliance Plugin

total website compliance & disclaimer solution …

For a detailed review of this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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. You can have legal pages 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.

To learn more, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your website to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal page templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or selling online. Your website must comply with a whole range of regulations, many of which you may not be aware of.

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 cannot offer legal advice. We strongly advise you 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 concerning your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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
• 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
• US Copyright Office

See Also …

• Google 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
• 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 presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple methods and resources.

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