Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you sell or promote?
Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent 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 plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also referred to as the BBB. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws affect several online business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, including Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
In this article, we look at the importance of having a legally compliant website and describe simple and inexpensive resources and solutions that will help make your WordPress site legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice in this article. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you recommend
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if these situations were to happen:
- A customer suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you will do with it.
- Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you could derive a financial benefit if they buy it.
- You don’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
- Your visitors claim your testimonials are all fake and try to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider also these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers took a risk 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 chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of 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 with warnings or lose access entirely 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 easy it is to risk becoming a target of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s imperative to ensure that your website or blog stays legally compliant.
Complying With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies
All of the leading websites and government regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site users know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you interact with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information if using their services or features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your websites with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell information products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their network …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to sell products with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.
A number of sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to create apps that will integrate with your site, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or making money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your website lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to consider including one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides content about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms (if you allow users to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets readers know that you are not receiving compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets users know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Content To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage 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 server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to these pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …
(WordPress Menu)
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 visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) to ensure that users can access the information from every page …
(Display legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar using widgets here:
Use Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
To learn more, visit this website:
Another option is to purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your legal web pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.
To learn more, go here:
Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use a plugin.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress websites and blogs you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing 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 simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. 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 when user agrees to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your main WordPress dashboard section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
Choose from various pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 about using this powerful plugin, visit the plugin website:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that includes over twenty customizable legal templates for your online business …
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
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 – 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.
More information:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider at least implementing some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the guidelines and terms of service for third-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your website or blog must comply with a whole range of 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 offer no legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet 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
- 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
- United States Copyright Office
Additionally …
- 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
- 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 compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive legal resources and solutions.
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