Category: Management Plugins

Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you are recommending or offering?

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 won’t protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.

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

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws has legal implications for various online business activities, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not let you list digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote various advertising and online marketing networks.

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

This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and lists simple resources and solutions that will make your WordPress website compliant.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice about your website or business. 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 and regulations governing business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you use on your website or blog

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider for a moment what would happen to your business if any of the situations below were to take place:

• Someone has a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you plan to do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• You have not divulged to your site visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you are endorsing that you will derive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and decide to sue you because of it.
• You did not disclose that you were given a free copy in a product review.
• Your site includes adult-related content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider too the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches described:

• 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. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’ve also been 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 was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ 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 randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in violation of at least 2 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 with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily become exposed to the risk of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

It’s vitally important to make sure that your online business stays legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

All the leading companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your website complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you interact with.

For example:

Google requires you to display legal information when using their products or features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your blogs using Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

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

(Policy requirements for selling products through ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.

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

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

Social Media Apps Also Have Compliance Requirements

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

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online using affiliate marketing, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, 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 - 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 third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site

If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into including any of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you will not receive for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Informs your readers that you may be compensated if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Explains to your readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your readers that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 Website

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

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

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

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

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

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu here:

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In Your Website

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms

Alternatively, you can download a package of cut & paste legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website legal 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 details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• 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 page on your website 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 the pages to your server as previously described.

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

Here are some great WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.

Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very 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 – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When a user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

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

(WP 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 Screen)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)

You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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

Visit this site to learn more this great plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your web presence …

To learn more about this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 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. 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 the plugin on all of your websites.

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your business 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 ready-made legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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

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As stated earlier, if you do business online, you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with all regulations and the terms of service and guidelines of third-party products and services that you may be promoting or selling online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed 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 cannot provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission 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

Plus …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple resources and solutions.

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