Is your website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you are promoting or selling?
As the internet continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and rules constantly change, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website remains compliant, especially if having an online presence plays an important role in your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
These laws has legal ramifications for various online business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, including Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may shut down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you will not be accepted into most advertising or online merchant networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could also end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your website(s) are required to comply with certain legalities, the importance of complying with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be offering online, and that there are easy solutions that can help your websites become fully compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations in your country or region.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A customer has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users skin rashes.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your website or blog telling visitors that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate and may earn a commission if visitors purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Your visitors claim that the testimonials on your site are all fake and decide to sue you because of it.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult-related information and you have not taken 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 details to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to give everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $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 UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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 websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed 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 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk being a target of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords User
- Info Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
You need to ensure that your website has the right legal pages and information displayed to all site users.
Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will interact with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their services or product features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Generating revenue online with your site using Google AdSense display advertising …
(Google AdSense display advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements digital product vendors selling via ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell products and services using product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this often prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation 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 does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with all FTC regulations.
There are many sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance
If you plan to develop applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are unsure 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 anything on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online 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 provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a magnet for litigation.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies)
What Compliance Information Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Compliant?
If your web site is falling short in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to look into including one or more of the following pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct web content disclosure information is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you are not receiving compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample/Review Copy – Explains to users that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets visitors know that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs your visitors 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.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you should consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers 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 server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)
You can then add a link to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu administration …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add these to your sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that visitors have access to legal information from all your site’s pages …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar using widgets here:
Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here for more details:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut & paste website legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Legal Pages)
These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for each 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 server as previously described.
More info:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using templates, you can simplify things by using WordPress plugins.
Here are some great plugins for WordPress-powered websites that you may be interested in checking out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)
If creating legal pages manually seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you many headaches.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your site.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will then 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 other page on your website.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when user agrees to your legal terms.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main WordPress dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type menu)
You can also select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 useful plugin, visit this site:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …
For an in-depth article about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 & Conditions
- 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more info:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford legal services.
We want your website to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (it’s FREE!), or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service for third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or use online. Your website or blog must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, some of which you may not be aware of.
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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.
Resources
Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your website may require to remain compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:
- FTC 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 – 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
- United States 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum