Category: Management Plugins

Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you recommend or sell?

Internet laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against you.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, 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.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws has implications for various online business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not let you list digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could reject your applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

If your website is not compliant, you could also face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) are required to comply with certain legalities, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be endorsing on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Is Your Site Compliant?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As stated previously, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of third-party companies whose services or products you endorse

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if the situations below were to happen:

• A customer has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site making visitors aware that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and will get paid an affiliate commission if visitors purchase through your link.
• You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are fake and decides to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy of the product in your review.
• Your site includes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too 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 his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes 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 websites chosen at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being exposed to litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdWords User
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog remains fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

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

You must let your visitors know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you interact with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information if using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many sites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

A number of resources online provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to create applications for your website users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• 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 assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to 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)

What Compliance Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Site To Be Protected From Legal Compliance Issues?

If you suspect that your website is falling short in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should help your business keep out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

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

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you are not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you will receive compensation if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to site users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Informs readers that you have been compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs your 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.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Site

Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

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

We recommend creating a legals folder in your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

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

You can then easily add a link to your pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

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

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

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

• Adding Widgets To The WordPress Sidebar

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & 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 details, then pasted into your legal pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission 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 website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as previously described.

Go here to learn more:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress-driven sites worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will help 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 reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:

• Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your dashboard section …

(WP Legal Pages – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

With WP Legal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured 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 this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

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

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro 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 & Conditions
• 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 powered 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 websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

To learn more, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal forms, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service for third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your website must comply with a wide range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we provide 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 all legal requirements regarding your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• 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
• Google 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.

***