Category: Management Plugins

One of the worst things that can happen to a business owner is to break the law.

Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Do a search online for “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 has consequences for several business activities, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in a range of advertising or online merchant networks.

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

In this guide, we look at why it’s important to have a compliant website and present simple and cost-effective solutions to make your website or blog legally compliant in minutes.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As previously stated, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you promote on your website

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the scenarios below were to take place:

• A user has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives people an adverse reaction.
• Your opt-in list provides a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone steals content from your site and publishes it on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site users know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are selling and may earn a commission if visitors buy products using your link.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
• A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider too these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he was also 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 copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 notices 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 become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

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

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

Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will engage with.

For example:

Google requires your site to display legal information when using their products and service. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue with your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

And even promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell digital products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add certain legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind 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 interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See our additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

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

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or using Google AdWords pay-per-click ads 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 all 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 avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

What Compliance Information Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?

If you suspect that your website or blog falls short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to look into including one or more of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general financial information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets users know that you will not be receiving any form of payment for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your visitors that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Explains to readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users that you were 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.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Site

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

Upload Legal 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 these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)

You can then easily add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar menu (or the footer of your site) so that visitors have access to the information from every page …

(Display legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)

We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar menu here:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To The Site

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms – Legal forms

Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website legal pages were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & 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 web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as described earlier.

Go here for more information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using copy & paste templates, you can keep things very simple using a plugin.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress-powered sites you should check out:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If manually setting up legal pages for your website seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time and effort.

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

• Built-in Templates – 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 basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other WP page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• 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 lockdown. Page unlocks when the user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will appear inside your WP dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

You can also select from several pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages – 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

Visit the plugin website to learn more about using this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over twenty customizable compliance page templates for your digital presence …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 And 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 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 this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some form of basic legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal expert.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal content, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines of third-party products and services that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your digital presence must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not even 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 offer no legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its 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
• 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
• US Copyright Office

See Also …

• 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 compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and cost-effective legal resources and plugins.

***