Category: WordPress Plugins

One of the worst situations a business owner can find themselves in is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital way of life continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s vitally important to try and stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your site remains legal, especially if your digital presence plays a significant part in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

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

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in various advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

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

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your website are subject to legal requirements according to laws that govern online businesses, 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 easy solutions that can help your online properties become more compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.

Is Your Website Legally Compliant?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations wherever your business operates in.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

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

• A person has a heart attack after using your online workout program.
• The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives people an adverse reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you’ll do with it.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you could derive a sales commission if they buy the product via your affiliate link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are misleading and decide to sue you as a result.
• You have not disclosed that you were given a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
• Your website publishes adult content and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider too these real examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had broken 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% 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 they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how a business owner can easily be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s imperative to ensure that your digital presence complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With Third-Party Services

Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.

You are expected to let your site visitors know that your website complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you interact with online.

For example:

Google requires you to display certain information when using their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your sites using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell digital products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products and services using testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt 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 any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.

There are many resources online that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …

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

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

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

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, 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 terminated.
• If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to 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 policies and guidelines)

What Legal Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If your web site is falling short in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

In addition to the above, you may want to consider including any of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right disclosure information to your site is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors be aware that you will not be receiving any kind of payment for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers know that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to site users that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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 Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually To Your Website

If someone prepares and delivers 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 server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Where To Display Legal Web Pages On Your Website

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from every page …

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

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

• How To Add And Configure Widgets On The Sidebar

Using Store-Bought Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms)

Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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 web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.

Here are some great legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

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

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

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

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

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)

Select from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 about using this plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that contains over twenty customizable legal pages for your digital presence …

Learn more here:

• Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)

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 of Service
• 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your site to be legally safe!

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

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and the terms of service and guidelines provided by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your digital presence must comply with a number of regulations, many of which you may not be aware of.

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 are not providing legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.

Legal Information

Here is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your website may require to comply and meet its 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

Also …

• Google 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site using simple legal resources and solutions.

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