Category: Management Plugins

Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are recommending or using?

Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “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 various online business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, including Google AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

Additionally, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

This guide explains the importance of having a compliant website and describes simple and cost-effective methods and solutions to help make your WordPress website compliant quickly and easily.

Is Your Website Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing 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 requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations governing business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you advertise on your website

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the situations below were to take place:

• Someone suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone an adverse reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website letting your visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and could earn an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are false and tries to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also the following actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal 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 received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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-chosen websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 with warnings 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 you could become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords User
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

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

Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Big 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 legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will interact with.

Here are just some examples:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your blog using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products through companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add certain legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale in their network …

(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.

Many resources online provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See the references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you plan to develop social networking applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to 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 organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your website using 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’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

What Legal Pages Should I Add To My Site To Be Compliant?

If your website or blog lacks in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

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

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider including one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors know that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Informs visitors that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some way 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers 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 using FTP …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that visitors have access to legal information from all your pages …

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

We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets In WordPress

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

Another option is to download a package of cut & paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• 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 WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.

Go here for more information:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, you can keep things very simple by using WordPress plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages instead …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you many headaches.

Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes – 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. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed 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 feature is added to your main dashboard area …

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

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche websites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

You can also select from various built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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

To learn more about the benefits of using this handy plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 of Use
• 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 powered 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 websites.

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal content, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines for third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or sell online. Your digital presence must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, some 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 cannot provide legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.

Resources

Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau
• 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

See Also …

• 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website using inexpensive resources and solutions.

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