Tag: Legal Pages

One of the worst things that can happen to a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital way of life continues to grow at such a fast pace and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s absolutely vital that you stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is important in the success of your business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for profit, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (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)

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

• Any form of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Bloggers
• etc.

If there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

If your website is not in compliance, 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 website or blog are subject to certain legal requirements according to laws that govern your business, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be advertising online, and that there are plugins for WordPress that can help your website become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. As previously stated, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you advertise on your website or blog

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Is your business at risk? Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be if any of these scenarios were to take place:

• A person has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your site letting your visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you will receive financial benefits if visitors buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
• Your visitors claim your testimonials are misleading and try to sue you because of it.
• You haven’t disclosed that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your website publishes adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too these actual examples 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 details to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — 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 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, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program with the violation, 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 litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdWords User
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

It’s vitally important to make sure that your digital presence is legally compliant.

Complying With 3rd-Party Companies

Leading online companies and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your site visitors know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with online.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information if using their services. This includes Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue with your WordPress sites with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)

And even promoting your business using Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information-based products with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add certain legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale in their networks …

(ClickBank – policy requirements)

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

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Website 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 websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of selling 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 making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines.

Various sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to resources at the end of this article …

(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you are planning to develop apps for your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about your legal pages …

(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)

• If you are not sure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies)

What Legal Pages Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your website or blog is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help your website keep out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

Additionally, you may want to consider including one or more of the following pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you provide information about affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right web content disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets readers be aware that you are not receiving compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies your visitors that you will receive compensation if they buy through an affiliate link.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets users know that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your readers know that you have been compensated in some form to write the article.
• 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Site

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legals folder on your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

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

You can then add a link to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

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 your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that users have access to legal information from all pages …

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar

Ready-Made Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

To learn more, go here:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of cut and paste website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates FTC guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• ToS & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

You can either create a new page for every legal form you want to add 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 described earlier.

For more information, go here:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.

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

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.

Some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can 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 easily editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when the user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will appear inside your dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Type of Site menu)

Choose from several pre-written legal templates …

(WP 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

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin containing over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your online presence …

Learn We’ve written a detailed article about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(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 of Use
• 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Visit this site to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.

We want your website to be legally protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (it’s FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal content, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate 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 do any type of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service (TOS) for third-party sites that you may decide to promote or use online. Your digital presence must comply with a wide range of 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.

Legal Resources And References

Below is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• 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
• US Copyright Office

See Also …

• 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

We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your website using simple and cost-effective methods and solutions.

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