Category: WordPress Plugins

One of the worst things that can happen to you as a business owner is to break the law.

Online laws and regulations were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not protect someone from taking legal action against you.

Recent 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, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

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

The introduction of these new laws has implications for several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, e.g. display advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be accepted into a number of advertising and online merchant networks.

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

In this article, we look at the importance of having a legally compliant website and provide simple and inexpensive solutions to make your website or blog legally compliant in minutes.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering 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.

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the following incidents were to take place:

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone an adverse reaction.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement informing subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you plan to do with their details.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
• There is no statement on your site making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re recommending that you could receive a commission if visitors end up buying using your link.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
• Your website publishes adult-related information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.

Consider also the real case studies of costly compliance breaches below:

• 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. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 users from scraping Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars 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 breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

it’s important to do whatever is necessary to make sure 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 - ToS, Policies, etc.

Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

You must let your site users know that your business complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you interact with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information if using many of their services. This includes using features like Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue online with your website using Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your services or products using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products and services online with the aid of product testimonials or 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. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) 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 business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the 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 Require Compliance

If you are planning to create social networking applications for your website users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Apps for social networks also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products online using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
• 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 third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

What Legal Pages Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Compliant?

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 website will help your website stay out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

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

As well as the pages above, you may want to look into adding one or more of the following pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you sell or promote affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors know that you will not be receiving any type of payment for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs readers that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Informs users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your readers that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Pages Manually

If someone prepares the legal content for you as standard web pages (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 HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then easily add a link to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can insert these into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website) so that users have access to legal information from every page …

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu or footer in WordPress using widgets, see this tutorial:

• Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar Section

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

To learn more, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms

Another option is to download a package of cut & paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

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

These templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be 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 Pages include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
• 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 each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.

Go here for more details:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can keep things really simple using plugins.

Here are some legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you loads of headaches.

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

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your navigation section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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 website to learn more this useful plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your website …

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(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 of Use
• 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites.

More info:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

We want your site to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal forms, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate basic 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 engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. You are strongly advised 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 Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:

• FTC 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
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• US Copyright Office

Plus …

• 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
• Google 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 why it’s important to have a legally compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and cost-effective methods, resources and WordPress plugins.

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