Category: WordPress Plugins

If you do any kind of business online, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.

Online laws were designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against you.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)

These laws has implications for various business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords or AdSense
• 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 statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

Plus, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site are subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern businesses online, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be recommending online, and that there are solutions that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the plugins that we discuss further below.

Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. As stated earlier, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you promote on your website or blog

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be if any of these scenarios were to happen:

• A user suffers a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone an adverse reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not defined what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their website.
• You haven’t advised your visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you’re recommending and may earn an affiliate commission if they purchase it.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
• Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you because of it.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider too the real case studies of costly compliance breaches listed below:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• 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 private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were in breach of 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 infringed 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 violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to become exposed to the risks of litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

it’s important to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With Third-Party Companies

Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in many countries emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will do business with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information when using their products and features. This includes Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Making money online with your blog with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

And even promoting your business through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell products online with merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and disclosures on your site, especially if you plan to sell products with the aid of product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies 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 does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your website complies with FTC regulations and guidelines.

Various online business resources provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references to some of these at the end of this article …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create social networking applications for your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

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

What Legal Information Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Covered Against Legal Compliance Issues?

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider adding any of these compliance pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you’re not being paid for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets readers be aware 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 comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

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

Upload Legal 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 site, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

You can then add a link to these legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) to ensure that users can access legal information from all of your pages …

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

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

• How To Add Widgets To The WordPress Sidebar

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more information, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your legal pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.

For more details, go here:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using copy & paste templates, you can keep things very simple using plugins.

Here are some great plugins for WordPress sites that you may be interested in checking out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages instead …

This plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you many headaches.

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

• Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will be added to your WP dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 useful plugin, visit the plugin site:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress websites and blogs with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your site …

Learn more here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 of Service
• 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your website to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal page templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, 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), it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice here. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.

References And Legal Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau Website
• 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
• 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
• 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website.

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