As a website owner, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have done something illegal.
As the cybersphere continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules constantly change, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if your digital presence plays an important role in your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for commercial gain, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of new laws affect various business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, including contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could reject your applications, and you will not be accepted into a range of advertising and affiliate merchant networks.
Additionally, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website or blog(s) are required to comply with certain legalities, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be offering on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your website become more compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider what could happen to your business if the situations below were to occur:
- A customer suffers a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives someone allergic reactions.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement letting subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you will do with their personal details.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site making your visitors aware that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and will receive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- Visitors claim the testimonials on your site are misleading and try to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site publishes adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.
Consider also the following actual 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 details to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required 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 was slapped with a whopping $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 internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independent study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
You need to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your digital presence complies with all laws governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You are required to let your site visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information if using their products and features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue online with your WordPress site with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for selling digital products via ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policy statements on your site, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
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 ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners 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 does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
A number of business resources provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See our additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to create apps for your site users, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- 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., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote products or services on your site via affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, 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 display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Site
If your website or blog lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site should keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into including any of these compliance pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets your visitors be aware that you are not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you will be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Discloses to visitors that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
- 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.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then add a link to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors can access legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:
Use Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
To learn more, go here:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut and paste website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal web 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 new Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (ToS) & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for each 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 previously.
Go here for more info:
Legal Pages – Plugins
As well as using templates, you can keep things very simple by using a plugin.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you should check out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If setting up legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your website.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. When a user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your navigation section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)
You can also choose from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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 website to learn more about using this great plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 of Service
- 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. 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 (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
Visit this website to learn more:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documentation, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines provided by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your website must comply with numerous 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
Resources
Here is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires 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 Website
- 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
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 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 legal resources and solutions.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)