Category: WordPress Plugins

Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you promote or advertise?

Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t protect someone from taking legal action against your business.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, then you will 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). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

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

The introduction of these laws has legal consequences for various online business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, e.g. pay-per-click advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a range of advertising and online merchant networks.

You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

In this article, we look at the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website using simple legal resources and WordPress plugins.

Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?

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

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives people allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you will do with the information you’ve collected.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog telling your site visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and will get paid financial benefits if they purchase it.
• You don’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
• Visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and decide 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 content and you have not taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too the following documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card information to complete his offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to give everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily become exposed to the risk of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

it’s important to ensure that your website has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site users.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies

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

You must let your visitors know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will interact with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information if using their products or service. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your site using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this will most likely prompt 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 do any type of money-making activity 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 is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.

You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide references to some of these at the end of this article …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to develop applications for your site users, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether 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 via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, 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 shut down.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

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

If your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site will keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

In addition to the above, you may want to consider adding one or more of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides information about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets visitors be aware that you are not receiving any form of compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs users that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
• Review/Sample Copy – Informs your readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs site users that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your 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 online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in standard web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)

You can then add a link to your legal 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 site visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors can access legal information from every web page …

(It’s important to display legal information to visitors on all of your website’s pages)

We have written a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC regulations and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• 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 page for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described earlier.

More info:

• Website Legal Pages

WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress websites and blogs that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If manually creating legal pages for your site feels too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by 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 fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your WP dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)

You have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page type menu)

You can also choose from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WP 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 using this plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …

Learn more here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then at least consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.

We want your site to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider using 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 Software quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any type of business online, you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with all government laws and regulations and any terms of service and guidelines of 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumers, 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Additional Resources

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to comply and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau – 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
• US Copyright Office

In Addition …

• Analytics Help – Policy requirements for Google Analytics Advertising Features
• Google AdSense Program Policies Explained
• Google 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 this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your site.

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