Is your WordPress website 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 do business with?
As the internet continues growing at an overwhelming speed and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of 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 material gain, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the Better Business Bureau, also referred to as BBB. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau)
These laws affect several business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like text link ads, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If there are no legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal 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 may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will disapprove your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a number of advertising or online merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly add legal pages to your website.
Is Your Website Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice in this article. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Consider what could happen to your business if any of these scenarios were to happen:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives someone skin rashes.
- Your opt-in list provides a statement informing subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting visitors know that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you could earn a sales commission if they decide to purchase through your link.
- You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your refund policies.
- A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and decides to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website includes adult-related content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to keep underaged persons 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 to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — 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 children’s private information.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had broken 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 to the Google program they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to ensure that your website or blog remains fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your site visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required by most companies you engage with.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information if using their products. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your site using Google AdSense display advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell products and services using testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations and guidelines.
Many business resources provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to develop apps for your website users, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …
(Apps for social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of service providers like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products online via affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, 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 provide on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
What Legal Pages Should I Add To My Website To Be Compliant?
If you suspect that your website is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external service providers, and 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
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to consider implementing one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides content about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs site users that you are not being paid for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users know that you will be compensated if they purchase through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets your readers know that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs site users that you have been compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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.
Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Site
Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then add a link to your legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer of your website) so that users have access to legal information from all your pages …
(Display links to legal information on all of your website’s pages)
To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer, refer to this tutorial:
Use Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted downloadable internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here for more information:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut & paste legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates)
Cut & Paste website legal pages 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 details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.
More information:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
As well as using legal templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress websites that you may be interested in using:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like any other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information is then 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 page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks only when the user agrees to your legal terms.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your dashboard menu …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings)
You have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, review sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
Select from various 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
Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
For a detailed article about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
To learn more, visit this site:
If hiring lawyers to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a solicitor.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to easily generate essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online, you need to make sure that your site 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. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumer rights, 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, we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice in this article. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.
References And Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to comply and meet legal obligations:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission 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
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
- AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
- ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
- Facebook Platform Policies
Hopefully, 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 website or blog using simple and cost-effective resources and solutions.
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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