Tag: Legal Pages

One of the worst predicaments you can find yourself in as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws are designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

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, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the 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)

The introduction of new laws has implications for various online business activities, including:

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

Without certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal may shut down your account, Facebook could reject your applications, and you won’t be accepted into various advertising and online marketing networks.

If your online business is not in compliance, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site are subject to legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be recommending online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Site Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations in your country or region.

Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important

Consider for a minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:

• Someone has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
• The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link allergic reactions.
• You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you will do with their details.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you are an affiliate for the product you’re recommending and could get paid a financial benefit if visitors purchase it.
• You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund and return policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are all fake and decide to sue you.
• You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of a product in your review.
• Your website includes adult-related information and you didn’t take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.

Consider now these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up personal information (including credit card information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to give a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer received 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 does not allow users to scrape Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% were in violation of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 entirely to the Google program whose policies with the infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how you could easily become exposed to the risks of non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product

It’s imperative to make sure that your digital presence complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Compliance With Third-Party Services Terms And Policies

Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You are expected to let your site users know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will interact with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display legal information when using their products or features. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your sites with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your products or services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add certain legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements product vendors using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

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 flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically results in 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 kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

There are many business resource sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …

(Structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you are planning to create applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about your legal pages …

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

• If you are unsure as to whether or not 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 are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your site using 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 take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

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

Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If you suspect that your web site is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory authorities and external providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms & Conditions
• Website Disclaimer
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider including one or more of these legal pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add the right types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – This lets your visitors know that you will not receive for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you may be compensated if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Discloses to your readers that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing.
• Sponsored Post – Lets visitors be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• 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 To Your Website

Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this done, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.

We recommend creating a legal directory on your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …

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

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

(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)

Displaying Legal Pages On Your Site

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that visitors can access legal information from all your pages …

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

To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress using widgets, see this tutorial:

• How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In Your Sidebar

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms

Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• Terms of Service (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 every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.

More info:

• Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Form Templates

Legal Page Plugins

As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can keep things very simple by using a plugin.

Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users you should check out:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

If the idea of creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you loads of headaches.

Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages are:

• Built-in Legal 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 your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to your 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 WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks when user agrees to your legal terms.
• New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will be added to your dashboard menu section …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, medical sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)

Choose from various pre-written 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

For more details about this plugin, go here:

• WordPress Legal Pages

Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire the services of a solicitor.

We want your website to be safe!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly 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 stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines provided by third-party services and products that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements concerning your specific business.

Legal Resources & References

Here is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC 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 – 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

Also …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website or blog using simple resources and plugins.

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