Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you are doing business with?
As the cybersphere continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules constantly change, it’s absolutely vital that you stay informed about what’s happening and make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having a digital presence plays an important role in your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws has consequences for several business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
If you do not include certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This article explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website using simple solutions.
Is Your Site Breaking The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws wherever you do business.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Are you at risk? Consider for one moment what could happen to your business if the scenarios below were to occur:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you plan to do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are marketing and will receive a sales commission if they purchase it.
- You don’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you as a result.
- You did not disclose that you were given a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
- Your website publishes adult information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider now the following documented examples 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 info to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received 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 Users IDs. Many internet 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 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 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 they had infringed, 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:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
It’s imperative to make sure that your website or blog stays legally compliant.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with third-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you will do business with.
For example:
Google requires your site to display legal information if using their products and features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your websites using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell products online via merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of business 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 by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.
A number of sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …
(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to develop social networking applications that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide access to your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are not sure whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- If you have ever wondered if “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, most third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help you stay out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and external providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the following pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website provides health or medical content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add correct disclosures to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets visitors be aware that you will not receive for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to your visitors that you will be compensated if they purchase through an affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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 Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal content for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to these legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display legal pages to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar or footer using widgets, refer to this tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms)
Visit this website to learn more:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations brought into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described earlier.
Go here for more information:
Legal Page Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things using plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress users that you should check out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of setting up legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you many headaches.
Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, 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 your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your WordPress dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)
With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
You can also choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP 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 this site to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress websites with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your online presence …
Go here to learn more:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro 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 – 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be 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.
For more information, go here:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a lawyer.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal forms, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not be aware of.
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?
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 about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements regarding your specific business.
Resources
Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB
- 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
In Addition …
- 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 presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and inexpensive resources and WordPress plugins.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum