Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you advertise or endorse?
Internet laws and regulations were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect someone from taking legal action against your business.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)
The introduction of these laws affect various business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed into many advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website may be required to comply with legal requirements, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be advertising online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tools that we list further below.
Is Your Site Breaking The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws in your country or region.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A customer has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you plan to do with their details.
- Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their own site.
- There is no statement on your site telling your visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you are marketing and could earn financial benefits if visitors end up purchasing via your affiliate link.
- You don’t spell out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are false and decides to sue you.
- You have not disclosed that you received a free copy of a product in your review.
- Your site includes adult-related information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider also these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to give a copy of the judgement to everyone he does 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 private details about children.
- 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 dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to ensure that your website stays legally compliant.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you interact with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue online with your websites with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online through companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for selling via their network …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you 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. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.
A number of online business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide references and links to additional resources to some of these at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to create applications that will integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether 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 plan to promote anything online via affiliate marketing, or making money online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, 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’ve ever wondered 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.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Common Legal Pages To Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your web site falls short 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 you out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to consider including one or more of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general advice about financial areas or money-making opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs users that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your 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.
Adding Legal Content To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory in your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then add a link to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that users have access to legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer here:
Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)
More info:
Another option is to download a package of legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.
For more information, go here:
Plugins – Legal Pages
In addition to using templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-driven websites and blogs you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time.
Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of 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 clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear inside your navigation area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
With WPLegal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, niche websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)
You can also select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 about this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin with over 20 customizable legal templates for your online presence …
Go here to learn more:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(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 Service
- 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more information:
If using the services of lawyers to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a solicitor.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal forms, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, 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 make sure that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or recommend online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Additional Resources
Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet legal obligations:
- FTC 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
- US 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
- 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site using inexpensive methods and resources.
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