If you plan to grow a successful business online, you do not want to learn the hard way that you have broken the law.
As the digital economy continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and rules constantly change, it’s vitally important to stay on top of what’s happening and make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if having a digital presence is an important factor in your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
The new laws has ramifications for several business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, e.g. Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
Without certain legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a number of advertising and online merchant networks.
If your digital presence is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
This article explains the importance of having a compliant website and explains simple ways to make your site legally compliant quickly and easily.
Is Your Website Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever your business is based.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing prospective subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly informed them what you will do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their own site.
- There is no statement on your website letting visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you are endorsing that you will derive an affiliate commission if they purchase using your link.
- You did not spell out the conditions of your refund and return policies.
- Your visitors claim your testimonials are false and decide to sue you as a result.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult-related content and you have not taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.
Consider now the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information 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 details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 to the Google program whose policies 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 exposed to litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords User
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online
You need to ensure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies
Leading online companies and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will do business with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using their products. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Monetizing your WordPress site using Google AdSense online advertising …
(Google AdSense policy requirements)
And even promoting your services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell digital products via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
New 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 flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations.
A number of business resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the additional references and 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 Applications
If you plan to create applications for your website, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Facebook apps also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether 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 anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts shut down.
- 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 services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Essential Legal Pages To Add To Your Site
If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will help your site stay out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Video/Audio Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you will not receive for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users be aware that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Discloses to site users that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 Compliance Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder on your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then easily add a link to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website or blog) so that visitors have access to the information from every page …
(Display legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:
Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More information:
Another option is to download a set of website legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
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 customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.
Visit this website to learn more:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use plugins.
Here are some plugins for WordPress-powered sites worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very 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 fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – 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. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When the user agrees to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear inside your main dashboard menu section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site menu)
Choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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 about the benefits of using this plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
The Compliance Bar WordPress Plugin is a total compliance and disclaimer solution for your online presence …
For more details go here:
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 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 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 sites.
More info:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your business to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal documentation, or plugins as described in the 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 are planning to), you need to ensure that your website is compliant with government laws and regulations and the guidelines and terms of service required by 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or selling online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
References And Resources
Here is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its 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
- 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
- US Copyright Office
In Addition …
- 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 this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum