Category: Management Plugins

One of the worst situations a business owner can find themselves in is to break the law.

Online laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent someone from taking legal action against you.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. 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 new laws has implications for various business categories, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you will not be allowed into a range of advertising or online marketing networks.

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

In this article, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and explain simple and cost-effective resources and solutions that will help make your WordPress site legally compliant quickly and easily.

Does Your Website Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice about your website or business. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what could happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own site.
• You haven’t advised your visitors that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you could get paid financial benefits if visitors end up buying via your link.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• A visitor claims that the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you as a result.
• You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
• Your site includes adult information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider too the real examples of costly compliance breaches below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily become exposed to the risks of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to make sure that your website remains legally compliant.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with online.

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell digital products through companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements product vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.

You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you plan to create apps that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, 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 - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

What Compliance Information Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Legally Compliant?

If your website or blog is lacking in terms 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 external service providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider implementing any of the pages listed below if applicable:

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

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets users know that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users know that you may be compensated if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets visitors be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your readers that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

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

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors will be able to access legal information from every web page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your WordPress sidebar or footer using widgets here:

• Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar Navigation Menu

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

Go here for more details:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal web pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

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 the pages to your web server as described earlier.

Go here for more info:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-driven websites and blogs worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages:

• Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like every other 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 you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When the user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• 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 WordPress dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)

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 this plugin, visit the plugin site:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your digital presence …

Learn We’ve written a detailed review of this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

This 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 Plugin – 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, visit this site:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your business to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal documentation, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate essential 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 are making money online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines required by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your website or blog must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.

Additional Resources

Below is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its 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
• Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau
• 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

Also …

• 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

We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website using inexpensive solutions.

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