Category: WordPress Plugins

As a website owner, you do not want to learn the hard way that you are doing something illegal.

Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you 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 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 – BBB)

The new laws has legal consequences for several online business categories, including:

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

If you do not include certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in many advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

If your website is not in compliance, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website(s) are subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be advertising on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become more compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on this website. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you promote

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of these scenarios were to occur:

• A user has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your site letting your site users know that you are an affiliate for the product you are selling and will get paid financial benefits if they decide to purchase through your link.
• You did not spell out the terms of your return policies.
• Someone claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and decides to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your site includes adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider also these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ 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 2010 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 two 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 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 risk becoming exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s vitally important to ensure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to all you site visitors.

Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

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

You are required to let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you engage 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)

Making money online with your site with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services or products via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information-based products via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) 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 selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.

A number of resources online provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the references and resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements

If you are planning to create applications that integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• 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., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, 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 need to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve been wondering if “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, almost all 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

What Legal Pages Does My Website Need To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?

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

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider including one or more of the following pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general content about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets users know that you will not receive compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users know that you may receive compensation if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users be aware that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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.

Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to 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 in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors will be able to access the information from every web page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress here:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Site

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

Go here for more info:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use: includes 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 every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described previously.

For more details, go here:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

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

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

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

If the idea of setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

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

Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your site.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information is then 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 other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when the user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your WordPress dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)

You can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Type of Site dropdown menu)

Choose from various built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – 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

Visit the plugin site for more information about this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

total website compliance and disclaimer solution …

Learn We’ve written a detailed review of this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

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 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

Go here for more information:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your site to be legally safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal content, or a plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, you need to make sure that your site complies with all laws and regulations and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or advertising online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Additional Legal Information

Here is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your website may require to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• BBB – 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

Plus …

• 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 why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using inexpensive resources and solutions.

***