Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are selling or promoting?
As the digital realm continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vitally important to try and stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. 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 – Better Business Bureau)
These laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
Without certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a number of advertising or online merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website or blog(s) may be subject to certain legal requirements according to laws that govern business practices online, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be endorsing on your site, and that there are solutions for WordPress users that can help your sites become compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
Is Your Site Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice on this website. As stated above, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you use
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users an adverse reaction.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re recommending and may get paid an affiliate commission if they purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
- A visitor claims your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
- Your site contains adult information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.
Consider also these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 entirely to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how a website owner can easily become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
it’s important to make sure that your online business is fully compliant with the law.
Complying With Third-Party Companies
Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with.
For example:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their services and features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your blog with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for selling via their network …
(Policy requirements product vendors using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often 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 do any type 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 regulations and guidelines.
There are many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide links to resources to a number of these at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These
If you are planning to develop apps for your site users, 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 unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your website using Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site
If your website lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your site should help keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into adding any of these compliance pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add correct disclosures to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your readers know that you’re not receiving any kind of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to readers that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Explains to users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then easily add links to these legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets here:
Using Ready-Made Templates
You can find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
For more information, visit this website:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut and paste website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates)
Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC guidelines that came into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described earlier.
Go here to learn more:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
As well as using templates, you can keep things really simple by using plugins.
Here are some great WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
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 many headaches.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WordPress page.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then 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 other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When the user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your main WP dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Screen)
You have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)
Choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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
To learn more this handy plugin, visit the plugin website:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that includes over twenty customizable legal templates for your site …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. Your legal pages can be 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 websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More information:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a lawyer.
We want your website to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or a plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate 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 make money online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for third-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Being non-compliant 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 are not offering legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.
Additional Information
Here is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau – 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
Also …
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site using inexpensive methods and resources.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum