Tag: Legal Pages

Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are recommending or advertising?

As the digital realm continues growing at such a fast pace and rules keep changing, it’s vitally important to stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your site remains legal, especially if having a digital presence plays an important role in your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

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

The introduction of new laws affect several online business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, including contextual ads
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list your digital products for sale, PayPal could shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

If your web presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your site(s) are required to comply with various legalities according to laws that govern online businesses, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you may be selling on your site, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your site become compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice about your website or business. As previously stated, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose services or products you recommend

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for one moment what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• A customer has a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
• You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you plan to do with their details.
• Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site telling your visitors that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and may get paid a commission if they buy via your link.
• You didn’t spell out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
• Online visitors claim the testimonials on your site are all fake and try to sue you.
• You have not disclosed that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your site contains adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider now these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
• 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 information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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 websites chosen at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of at least three 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 with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk being a target of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog stays fully compliant with the law.

Compliance With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

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

You are expected to let your site users know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you do business with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information when using their products and service. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue online with your blogs with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many sites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type of selling 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 making sure that your site complies with FTC guidelines.

A number of business resource sites provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with access to various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue 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 are required to provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• If you’ve ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Compliance Pages Does My Website Need To Be Compliant?

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your website stay out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

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

As well as the above, you may want to look into including any of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Discloses to site users that you are not receiving compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you may derive some form of financial or similar kind of benefit if they buy through your affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets your visitors know that you were compensated in some form 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 online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Site

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

Upload Legal Pages To Your Website

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 creating a legal folder on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages via FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that users have access to legal information from all your pages …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your WordPress sidebar using widgets here:

• Using Widgets

Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can download a set of cut & paste website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms 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 that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

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

For more information, go here:

• Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

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

Here are some plugins for WordPress websites and blogs worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you a great deal of time.

Some of the benefits of using the WP Legal Pages are:

• Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• 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 – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be 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 WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will be added to your main navigation menu …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)

With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

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

(WP Legal Pages – 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

Go here to learn more this plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WP Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable compliance pages for your website …

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

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 & 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 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 plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.

For more details, visit this website:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring legal experts to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some form of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.

We want your website to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal content, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As stated earlier, if you do business online, you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or recommend online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, 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, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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
• 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

In Addition …

• 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 above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website using simple and cost-effective solutions.

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