Tag: Legal Pages

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

As digital business continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s going on and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if your online presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites 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 (US based) BBB, or Better Business Bureau. 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 – BBB)

The introduction of these new laws affect various business categories, including:

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

If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t allow you to list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a number of advertising or online merchant networks.

If your digital presence is not compliant, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

This article explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and shows you inexpensive methods to help make your WordPress site compliant quickly and easily.

Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice on this website. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws wherever you do business.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if these situations were to happen:

• A user has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people an adverse reaction.
• You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you plan to do with it.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your website or blog letting visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you’re promoting that you could get paid a commission if visitors purchase it.
• You have not spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are misleading and decide to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your site publishes adult-related content and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider too the following documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• 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. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received 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 Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach 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 cautions 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 easy it is to risk becoming exposed to litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

it’s important to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to all site users.

Compliance With Third-Party Services

Big companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your sites using Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information products via companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add legal pages to your website before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …

(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling via ClickBank)

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

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC guidelines.

Various business resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to develop social networking applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or make money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or use 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 include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you have been wondering 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, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Website

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

Adding the following legal pages to your website should help you keep out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to look into adding any of these pages if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides information about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to downloadable videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

It’s important to add the right disclosures to your website. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you will not receive compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Discloses to your visitors that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Informs your visitors that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs visitors that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets readers know 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Website

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legal directory on your server and uploading your legal pages to this folder using FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) to ensure that visitors can access the information from every page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Blog

Using Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can find attorney-prepared downloadable internet forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

For more details, go here:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut and paste website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• 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 each legal form you want added to your site, 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:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

As well as using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.

Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you many headaches.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will be 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 any other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When the user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)

You have the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal page types)

You can also select from a number of pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Built-In 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 this plugin, visit the plugin website:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-powered websites that includes over 20 customizable compliance templates for your site …

More info:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 Use
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro 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 websites.

Go here for more info:

• Legal Suite Pro

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

We want your website 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 templates, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates necessary 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, it’s important that your website is found to comply with government laws and regulations and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for third-party products and services that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your digital presence must comply with a whole set of regulations, many of which you may not even 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 on our website. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.

Resources

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to comply 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 – 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

Plus …

• 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
• Google 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 presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your WordPress website or blog using simple and cost-effective methods and solutions.

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