Category: WordPress Plugins

One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a business owner is to break the law.

As the digital way of life continues growing at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely essential to try and stay informed about what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays an important role in your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online for information about “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 affect various online business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, including Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook could disapprove your applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in a number of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

This guide explains the importance of having a compliant website and how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business is based.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be if any of the scenarios below were to occur:

• Someone suffers a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives people allergic reactions.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your website letting visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you could derive a financial benefit if visitors purchase via your affiliate link.
• You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims that your testimonials are misleading and tries to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your site includes adult information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also 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 an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 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 notices 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 a business owner can easily be exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to ensure that your online business is legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you interact with online.

For example:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue online with your site using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products with merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, 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 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. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website complies with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

There are many online resources that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …

(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to develop social networking applications that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about your 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 organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)

Basic Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance

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

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should help your business stay out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider adding one or more of the pages listed below:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you provide users with access to downloadable media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets site users know that you will not receive compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you will derive some form of financial or similar form of benefit if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
• Sample/Review Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service.
• Sponsored Post – Informs readers that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you should consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that users have access to the information from all your pages …

(Display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)

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

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Blog

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

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

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

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.

To learn more, visit this site:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

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

Here are some plugins for WordPress websites worth looking into:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

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

Here are just some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages:

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to 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 just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Select from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured 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 WordPress plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your web presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 And 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 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. 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 the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, visit this site:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your site to be protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal templates, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done and any terms of service and guidelines of third-party sites that you may be promoting or using online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed 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 offer no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.

Legal Resources And References

Below is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain 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

Additionally …

• 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 presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site.

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