Category: WordPress Plugins

If you plan to grow a successful business online, the last thing you want to do is to find out that you have been operating on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital economy continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely vital to stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant part in your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your website for material gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (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)

These laws affect various online business activities, including:

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

Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a number of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

If your online presence is not in compliance, you could end up facing a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site(s) may be required to comply with various legalities in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be offering on your site, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins that we discuss further below.

Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you offer on your website

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for a moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A person suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you’ll do with their details.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
• You haven’t advised visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and may get paid a financial benefit if visitors buy using your link.
• You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website includes adult content and you didn’t take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider now the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• 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, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program whose policies with the violation, 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, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

it’s important to ensure that your digital presence remains fully compliant with the law.

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

Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you interact with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their services and features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your websites using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products using merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add certain legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for vendors)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially regarding the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, 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 selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations.

There are many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide links to useful and additional references to a number of these at the end of this article …

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

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to create apps that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or using 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 provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

What Legal Information Pages Should You Add To Your Website To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?

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

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

• About Us Page
• Contact Us
• Privacy Policy
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimer Pages
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the above pages, you may want to consider implementing one or more of these compliance pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website provides general information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Informs readers that you will not receive for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Informs your readers that you will receive compensation if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets site users know 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 have been 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you should consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)

You can then add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

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

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

For a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using WordPress Widgets

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

For more details, go here:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms)

These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & 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 page on your website for each legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described earlier.

More info:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

As well as using templates, you can keep things really simple by using WordPress plugins.

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

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

If the idea of setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you a great deal of time and effort.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages 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 WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your WP dashboard menu section …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)

Choose from various pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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

To learn more about this WordPress plugin, go here:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over twenty customizable compliance templates for your online presence …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 & Conditions
• 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 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 the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your site to be 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 templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and any terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. Your website or blog must comply with various 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• 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 – BBB
• 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

And …

• 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 compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website or blog.

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