Tag: Legal Pages

One of the worst things that can happen to a business owner is to break the law.

Online laws and regulations were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against your business.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you must follow certain disclosure guidelines 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 “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)

The new laws has legal consequences for various online business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, like contextual ads
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t approve digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote most advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

If your online presence is not compliant, 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 help make you aware that your website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern businesses online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you may be recommending online, and that there are solutions for WordPress that can help your online properties become more compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated previously, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party companies whose services or products you use on your website

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider for a minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:

• A user suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you’ll do with the details you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your site and puts it up on their website.
• There is no statement on your website making your visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you will earn a sales commission if they purchase it.
• You don’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund/return policies.
• A visitor claims your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you have received a free copy in your product review.
• Your website contains adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider too the following actual examples of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information to complete his offer. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, they’re 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 without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing private information about children.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits users from scraping 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% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation 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 with warnings or lose access to the Google program whose policies with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to become exposed to the risk of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
• Network Marketer
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords User
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

it’s important to make sure that your website or blog is legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.

Compliance with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will do business with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites to display certain information when using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Making money online with your website with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense - policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you plan to sell digital products through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements product vendors selling via ClickBank)

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and policies on your website, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners 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 any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website complies with all FTC regulations and guidelines.

There are many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to create apps that will integrate with your site, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide access to your legal pages …

(Social networking apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure whether or not you are 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 online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
• 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, most third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)

Common Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website

If your web site falls short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

Adding the following legal pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Earnings Disclaimer
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides advice about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Disclosure that informs users that you will not receive any type of compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Lets visitors know that you will benefit financially if they purchase through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Lets your readers be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
• Sponsored Post – Lets visitors know that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once this has been created, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Website

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

We recommend creating a legal directory in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

You can then easily add a link to your pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu administration …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can add these to your sidebar (or the footer of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from every page …

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

We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer here:

• How To Configure WordPress Widgets On The Sidebar Area

Store-Bought Legal Templates

You can easily find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More information:

• Find Legal Forms – Attorney-drafted legal forms

Another option is to purchase a package of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates)

These legal templates were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service & 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described previously.

For more information, go here:

• Website Legal Pages

Legal Page Plugins

In addition to using cut & paste templates, you can simplify things using plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

This plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.

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

• Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when you publish.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks when the user agrees to your legal terms.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your WordPress dashboard area …

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

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

You have the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type menu)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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

Visit this website to learn more about using this great plugin:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs with over 20 customizable compliance page templates for your site …

Learn more here:

• Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.

We want your business to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-drafted legal forms, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any type of business online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and any guidelines and terms of service required by third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or endorse online. Your website or blog must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even 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 cannot provide legal advice. 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.

Additional Resources

Below is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet its 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
• US Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Copyright Office

And …

• 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
• Google AdWords Help – What to include in your privacy policy for remarketing
• ClickBank – Creating Your First Product
• Facebook Platform Policies

We hope this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your website.

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