Tag: Legal Pages

Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you use or recommend?

As the digital way of life continues growing at such a rapid pace and the rules constantly change, it’s absolutely essential that you try to stay on top of what’s going on and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is an integral part of your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you will need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) 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.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – BBB)

The new laws has legal implications for several online business activities, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into most advertising and online marketing networks.

You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.

In this guide, we discuss the importance of having a compliant website and explain simple solutions that will help make your site compliant in minutes.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws in your country or region.

Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if any of the following were to occur:

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone skin rashes.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with it.
• Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are endorsing that you will receive financial benefits if visitors buy it.
• You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are all fake and decides to sue you because of it.
• You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
• Your site contains adult-related information and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underage children from accessing it.

Consider also these documented 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 info to complete his offer. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’re now required to issue a copy of the judgement to everyone he does business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• 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 $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 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 exposed to non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s vitally important to make sure that your online business stays legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade in various countries emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.

You must let your visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will do business with.

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information if using their products. This includes using services such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your WordPress sites using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense policy requirements)

Or promoting your products through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell information-based products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will be required to add certain legal pages before your products are approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to display clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant

New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically 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 do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site complies with FTC regulations.

Various resources online provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide references to a number of these at the end of this article …

(It’s important to word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create apps that integrate with your website, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their policies)

Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website

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

Adding the following compliance pages to your site should help your business stay out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and third-party service providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us Page
• Contact Page
• Privacy Policy
• Terms And Conditions
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

As well as the pages above, you may want to consider including one or more of the pages listed below if applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides general health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the correct type of disclosure is important. For example:

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

Adding Legal Pages To Your Site

Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages To Your Website

If someone prepares the legal content for you in typical web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)

You can then easily add links to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from all your site’s pages …

(It’s important to display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, see this tutorial:

• How To Use Widgets

Store-Bought Legal Templates

You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted forms and agreements by searching online, or going to sites like the ones shown below:

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Legal forms)

To learn more, visit this website:

• FindLegalForms.com

Alternatively, you can download a package of website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

Cut & Paste website templates were written 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 insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• 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 on your website for each legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.

Go here to learn more:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates

Legal Page Plugins

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

Here are some legal WordPress plugins you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WP Legal Pages)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages …

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

Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages plugin:

• Built-in Templates – Includes 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 a few clicks of the mouse.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other WordPress page.
• Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item is added to your main navigation area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Area)

You have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)

Choose from several pre-written legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Pre-configured 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 this WordPress plugin, visit this website:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …

For more details go here:

• Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro)

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 – 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress 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 websites.

Visit this website to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some type of basic legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a lawyer.

We want your site to be safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal page templates, or a WordPress plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate basic 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 engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or offer online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect consumer rights, you’re breaking the law.

Being non-compliant 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 are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.

References And Resources

Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your site may require to stay compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• 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
• 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
• United States Copyright Office

Plus …

• 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site using simple and inexpensive methods and solutions.

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