Category: WordPress Plugins

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

As the digital era continues growing at such a fast pace and the rules constantly change, it’s vital that you try to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website remains legal, especially if having a digital presence plays an important part in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the 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.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

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

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

If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote various advertising or online 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 or blog(s) are subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be advertising online, and that there are plugins for WordPress that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws concerning your specific business.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for one moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A person suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with it.
• Someone copies your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making your site users aware that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you may receive a financial benefit if visitors buy it.
• You didn’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
• Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you received a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your site includes adult-related information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to issue everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
• A social networking app developer copped a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation of 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 violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming a target of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords Advertiser
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website is legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the need of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You are expected to let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using many of their products and features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Monetizing your blog with Google AdSense online advertising …

(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products with companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for sale in their network …

(Policy requirements for vendors selling via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – 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 will reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has already been the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of business 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 making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines and regulations.

Many sites provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you plan to create apps that will integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not 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 services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or using Google AdWords pay-per-click ads 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 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 protect yourself and your business.

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

What Legal Information Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Safe From Legal Compliance Issues?

If your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following legal pages to your website should help you stay out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider adding one or more of these compliance pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general content about financial areas or income opportunities)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets users be aware that you will not receive any form of payment for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your readers know that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
• Sample/Review Copy – Disclosure that informs your readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs your visitors 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 website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been created, 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 formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legals folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from every page …

(Display links to your legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets, see this tutorial:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

To learn more, visit this website:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut and paste website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And 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 a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

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

More information:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some great legal WordPress plugins that you may be interested in checking out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

(WP Legal Pages Plugin)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site much easier and save you a great deal of time.

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

• Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of 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.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you 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 lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature is added to your navigation area …

(WP 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 – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review sites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)

You can also select from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 this powerful plugin, visit this site:

• WP Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

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

Go here to learn more:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro 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 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

To learn more, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your site to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

***

As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party services and products 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice in this article. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.

Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your site may require to comply and meet legal obligations:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission 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

See Also …

• 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 legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog using simple resources and WordPress plugins.

***