Category: WordPress Plugins

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital era continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important that you try to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

The introduction of these laws has ramifications for various business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, like text link ads, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in various advertising or online marketing networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website or blog(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern businesses online, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be advertising on your site, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your site become more compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Is Your Website Or Blog Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the following scenarios were to happen:

• A customer suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives people an allergic reaction.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your site letting your site visitors know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you will receive financial benefits if they purchase it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your return policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are fake and try to sue you because of it.
• You did not disclose that you were given a free copy of the product you are reviewing.
• Your website publishes adult information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider now these real 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 an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two 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 notices or lose access to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Leading online companies and government trade 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 will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with.

For example:

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

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell digital products through companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their network …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product vendors)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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. you should protect your business interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines and regulations.

Many resources online provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

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

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or use 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 terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

Essential Legal Pages To Add To Your Website

If your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should help your site keep out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider including one or more of these compliance pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Media Terms (if you provide users with access to media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Lets users know that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your readers that you may receive compensation if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets your visitors be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Informs your readers that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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 Compliance Pages To Your Website

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 created, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), 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 server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

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

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

(WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or the footer of your website or blog) so that users will be able to access legal information from all of your pages …

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar or footer, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To Your Site

Templates

You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

Go here for more info:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut and paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple 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 Forms include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service (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 every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described earlier.

To learn more, go here:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using templates, another option is to use a plugin.

Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you may be interested in using:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

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

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – 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 your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear inside your main dashboard menu …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Select from various pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured 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 the benefits of using this handy plugin:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable legal templates for your online business …

To learn more about the plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 Use
• 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. Your legal pages can be 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 sites.

Go here for more details:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As stated earlier, if you do any type of business online, you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines of 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or recommend online. Your website or blog must comply with various regulations, 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law in your country or region.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission 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
• 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

Plus …

• 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

We hope this article has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site.

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