Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are endorsing or advertising?
As the digital way of life continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of new laws has implications for several business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook will reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of complying with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be recommending online, and that there are solutions that can help your websites become compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
Is Your Site Legally Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations concerning your specific business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their own website.
- You have not divulged to your site visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you could derive a financial benefit if visitors purchase through your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the terms of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are misleading and decide to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider now these 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 (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. 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 internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were in violation 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 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 they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence remains legally compliant.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will engage with online.
For example:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using many of their products. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your blogs with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell information products via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell products online with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
Various sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to create apps for your website users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or using Google AdWords 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 suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website
If you suspect that your web site falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your website keep out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to consider implementing any of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms (if you allow users to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your readers know that you’re not receiving any type of compensation for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
- 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 Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your web 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 add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or the footer of your website) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)
If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-prepared website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
Go here for more info:
Another option is to download a set of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal 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 add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new page 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 these to your server as described previously.
For more details, go here:
WordPress Legal Plugins
As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things using plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-driven sites you should check out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …
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 website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to 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 a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit 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 just like every other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your main dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
For more details about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin site:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro)
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 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
To learn more, visit this website:
If using the services of legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a solicitor.
We want your site to be legally 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 legal documentation, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines for third-party sites that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your website must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.
Resources
Below is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to comply and meet its 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 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
- US Copyright Office
Also …
- 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
- 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website or blog.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group