Is your WordPress site compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you recommend or offer?
Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the 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 for more details.
(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws has legal consequences for several online business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, including contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Blogging
- etc.
Without legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will suspend web applications, and you won’t be allowed to participate in a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
Additionally, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and lists simple and inexpensive solutions that will make your WordPress site legally compliant.
Is Your Site Compliant?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws governing business practices online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you recommend on your website
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the following were to occur:
- A person has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness program.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
- Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their own website.
- There is no statement on your site letting your site visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you are marketing and may receive an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
- You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund or return policies.
- Someone claims the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult-related content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider too 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 their personal information (including credit card information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping UIDs. 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 websites chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation 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 with warnings or lose access entirely to the Google program they had violated, 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 litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- 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 remains legally compliant.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of third-party service providers.
You must let your site users know that your website complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you do business with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information if using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue with your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products with companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements for product sellers)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products online with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already 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 type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC guidelines and regulations.
There are many online business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring 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 create apps for your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, 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’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with many consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Website Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to look into including any of the following pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the right types of disclosure pages to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs readers that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies your visitors that you will derive some form of financial benefit if they purchase through your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets users know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Lets readers be aware 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.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder in your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your web server and upload pages via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar menu (or the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every page …
(It’s important to display legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
If you need help displaying links to pages on your sidebar, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and website forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Visit this site to learn more:
Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates drafted by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)
These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as previously described.
More information:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste templates, you can keep things very simple by using plugins.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium 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.
Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog 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 page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your legal terms.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will display inside your main dashboard menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Screen)
With WP Legal Pages, you can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, niche websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page type dropdown menu)
You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, visit this website:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
total website compliance and disclaimer solution …
Go here to learn more:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less 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).
For more information, go here:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a legal firm.
We want your business to be legally 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 content, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate basic 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 do business online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and any guidelines and terms of service required by third-party sites that you may be promoting or using online. Your website or blog must comply with a whole range of regulations, some of which you may not even 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your specific business.
Legal Resources And References
Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to stay 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
- 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- United States 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
- 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site using simple methods and resources.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com