Category: WordPress Plugins

As a website owner, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

As the digital realm continues to grow at such a rapid pace and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s absolutely essential that you try to stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having a digital presence is a fundamental factor in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

The introduction of new laws has implications for various online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, like inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will disapprove your applications, and you will not be accepted into various advertising and online merchant networks.

If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could end up facing a number 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 or blog are subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you may be using on your site, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your online properties become more compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Is Your Website Compliant?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. As stated above, the purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations governing business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you advertise

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what could happen to your business if these scenarios were to take place:

• A customer has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own website.
• You did not tell your site visitors that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you could derive an affiliate commission if visitors buy through your link.
• You don’t spell out the terms of your refund or return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and tries to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in a product review.
• Your website publishes adult information and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider too the following real examples 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 an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a massive $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 does not allow users to scrape 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 broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 cautions 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 easy it is to risk becoming exposed to litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s vitally important to ensure that your online business stays fully compliant with the law.

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

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You are required to let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your site, it’s also required by most companies you interact with.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information when using their services or product features. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Generating revenue with your website with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your site using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell digital products via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners 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 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 all FTC regulations and guidelines.

There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources to some of these at the end of this article …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to develop applications for your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with access to various legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or using 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

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

What Compliance Information Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Legally Compliant?

If your web site is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help you stay out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

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

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides health or medical content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the correct type of disclosure to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs readers that you are not being paid for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Informs your readers that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Informs your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

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 them for you.

We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

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

You can then easily add a link to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) so that visitors have access to the information from all your pages …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer using widgets here:

• Adding And Configuring Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Section

Use Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page for every 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 web server as previously described.

More info:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Pages – Plugins

In addition to using templates, another option is to use plugins.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WP Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you loads of headaches.

Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

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

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

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

Select from various 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

To learn more this plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven sites with over 20 customizable legal pages for your online presence …

To learn more about this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

Legal Suite Pro 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 & Conditions
• 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 plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).

For more information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.

We want your website to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal templates, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, you need to ensure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or use online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws intended to protect the rights of 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, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice in this article. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Additional Information

Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:

• FTC 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 – 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US 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
• 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 compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site using simple solutions.

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