One of the worst things that can happen to a business owner is to break the law.
As the internet continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s vital to try and stay on top of what’s happening and to make sure that your site remains legally compliant, especially if having a digital presence plays a significant part in your business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws affect various online business activities, including:
- Any kind of advertising, including text link advertising, 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 web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may shut down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in various advertising and online marketing networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
This guide explains why it’s important to have a compliant website and shows you simple solutions to help make your WordPress website or blog compliant.
Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice about your website or business. You must carry out your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever you do business.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin cream you promote as an affiliate gives people skin rashes.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone copies your content and publishes it on their website.
- You haven’t advised your site users that you are endorsing a product as an affiliate that you will derive financial benefits if visitors purchase through your link.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your return policies.
- Visitors claim the testimonials on your site are fake and try to sue you because of it.
- You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy of a product in your review.
- Your site contains adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider also these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction offer. 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 without users’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
- 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% had broken at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 becoming exposed to litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdWords Advertiser
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information accessible to your site users.
Complying With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
All of the leading websites and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you engage with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires websites to display certain information when using many of their services and features. This includes using features like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your WordPress site using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell digital products with companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages to your website before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank product vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially when using testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners 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 any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.
Various business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references to some of these at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your website users, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others with information about your legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure as to whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products on your site as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay 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 to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you’ve been wondering 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 third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)
Basic Legal Pages To Include In Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your site should help your site stay out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the pages above, you may want to look into adding any of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides health or medical information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs visitors that you will not receive for writing the post.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users be aware that you will benefit financially if they purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets users be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product you’re reviewing or writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets site users know that you were 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 comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Legal Pages To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Pages To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can add links to your legal pages to the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) so that users have access to legal information from all your pages …
(Display legal information to visitors on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on adding links to pages on your WP sidebar using widgets here:
Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-prepared downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
Go here to learn more:
Another option is to purchase a package of cut and paste legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages)
These legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web 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 new FTC regulations that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every 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 web server as described earlier.
Go here for more info:
WordPress Plugins – Legal Pages
In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages)
If manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.
Here are just some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by 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 mouse clicks.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your WordPress dashboard section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings Screen)
With WPLegal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
You can also select from a number of built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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, go here:
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites and blogs containing over twenty customizable compliance templates for your digital presence …
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
For more information, go here:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines of third-party sites that you may be promoting or offering online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect 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, we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.
Additional Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program
- 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
- 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
- Google 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 inexpensive resources and solutions.
***
"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