Is your WordPress website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking the law, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you use or endorse?
Online laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws has ramifications for several online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed into a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your site are subject to legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online businesses, the importance of complying with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be selling on your site, and that there are plugins for WordPress website owners that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins that we list further below.
Does Your Website Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations in your country or region.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the situations below were to occur:
- Someone has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you may receive a sales commission if they decide to purchase through your affiliate link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider now these documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. 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 information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed 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 with warnings 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 easy it is to risk being targeted for litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website stays legally compliant.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Compliance with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will interact with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using their services and product features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue with your sites with Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online using places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements product vendors using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, 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 business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site complies with FTC regulations.
Many online business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to create social networking applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything on your site via affiliate marketing, or making money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you have 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 interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your website should help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into including any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the right disclosures to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors know that you will not receive for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Informs site users that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your readers know 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares 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 creating a legal folder on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then add links to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) so that users will be able to access legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer here:
Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted internet forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to websites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
Go here to learn more:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & 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 web pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.
More information:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when user agrees to your terms.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear in your WordPress dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)
Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
Visit this website to learn more this powerful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
The Compliance Bar Plugin For WordPress is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online business …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
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 And Conditions
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro – 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. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
More info:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation 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 website to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you are making money online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your website complies with government legal requirements and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.
Resources
Here is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to stay compliant 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
And …
- 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
- 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 above to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)