Category: Management Plugins

Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are endorsing or using?

As the internet continues growing at such a rapid pace and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s absolutely vital to try and stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your web presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) 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.

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

The introduction of new laws affect various online business activities, including:

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

Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not approve your digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

In this article, we discuss why it’s important to have a compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website.

Is Your Site Breaking The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. As previously stated, the aim of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern your business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you advertise on your website

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• Someone has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you plan to do with the details you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you may receive a financial benefit if visitors purchase via your affiliate link.
• You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are false and try to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in your product review.
• Your site publishes adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider now these real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• 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 whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had broken 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 violation 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 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 become exposed to the risks of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence remains legally compliant.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies

Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You are expected to let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with.

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your website using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their network …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to create social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you are 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 services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the following pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you will not be receiving any kind of payment for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors be aware that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets readers know that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Website

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

We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your 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 administration …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

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

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

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

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar

Use Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

For more details, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your 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 (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service & 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 WordPress page for every 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 previously.

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things using a plugin.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to bother with 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 affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you time.

Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages are:

• Built-in 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 – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content 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 website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your navigation area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)

Select from several pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress 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

To learn more this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro 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 And 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 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of lawyers to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a solicitor.

We want your site 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 ready-made legal forms, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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 do any type of business online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with all government laws and regulations and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines of third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or recommend online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of consumers, you’re breaking the law.

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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer 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 all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• 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

And …

• 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 above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.

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