Category: Management Plugins

One of the worst predicaments a business owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws affect several online business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, including display advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Blogging
• etc.

If your website 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, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend your applications, and you won’t be accepted into many advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website(s) are subject to legal requirements according to laws that govern online business practices, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be using on your website, and that there are easy solutions for WordPress that can help your website become more compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice in this article. As stated above, the purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you offer on your website

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if any of these situations were to happen:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you will do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you are promoting and will receive financial benefits if they purchase via your affiliate link.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
• Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you because of it.
• You have not disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
• Your site publishes adult-related content and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider also the following real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to give a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $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 UIDs. 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 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

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

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

it’s important to ensure that your online business complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You are required to let your site visitors know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires you to display legal information if using many of their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your websites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell products online using places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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 is not located in the U.S. you should protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations.

You can find many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

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

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• 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 it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products online via affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, 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 need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.

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

Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site falls short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to look into including one or more of these pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the correct type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Discloses to readers that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your readers be aware that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they buy through an affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Informs visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your readers that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from all of your pages …

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

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

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar

Store-Bought Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like this one:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)

These 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 Page Templates include:

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

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

For more information, go here:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some plugins for WordPress sites worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress 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 website much easier and save you many headaches.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just 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 – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog 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 check box and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when user agrees to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

Select from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP 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

Go here to learn more about this powerful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your website …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 And Conditions
• 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be 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 (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.

We want your business to be legally protected!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site is compliant with all government regulations and any terms of service and guidelines of 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole range of regulations, many of which you may not even be aware of.

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, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.

Resources

Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau – 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
• United States 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
• Google AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
• ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
• Facebook Platform Policies

We hope this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive solutions.

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