Tag: Legal Pages

Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are promoting or advertising?

Internet laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes goods or services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law won’t excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for profit, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

These laws affect various business categories, including:

• Any form of advertising, including Google AdWords or AdSense
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If your site does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject your applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a number of advertising and online merchant networks.

If your website is not compliant, you could also face a number 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 website(s) may be required to comply with legal requirements according to laws that govern online businesses, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of external providers whose products or services you may be using online, and that there are solutions that can help your websites become more compliant, such as the tools listed further below.

Does Your Website Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all laws and regulations wherever you do business.

Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important

Consider for one minute what would happen to your business if these situations were to occur:

• A customer has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t defined what you’ll do with the information you have collected.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your website informing your site visitors that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re marketing and could receive a commission if visitors purchase it.
• You did not spell out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are misleading and tries to sue you.
• You did not disclose that you received a free copy of the product in your review.
• Your website contains adult content and you did not take appropriate measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider too the documented case studies of costly compliance breaches described:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a significant $390,000 fine, they’ve also been ordered to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independently-conducted study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% had breached 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 breaking 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 with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

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

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Product Marketer
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Affiliate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

It’s imperative to ensure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.

Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

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

You are obligated to let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with.

For example:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using their products. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)

Earning revenue online with your blog with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

Or promoting your site through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you sell information products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will be required to add legal pages to your website before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …

(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. you should protect your business interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC guidelines.

You can find many online resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

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

Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These

If you plan to create apps for your website users, social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others will require you to provide information about your legal pages …

(Facebook apps also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your website 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 shut down.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

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

What Legal Information Do You Need To Add To Your Website To Be Compliant?

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

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep you out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and third-party providers, and avoid potential legal issues):

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

As well as the above, you may want to look into adding any of these pages where applicable:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial content)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms Of Use (e.g. if you provide users with access to download media on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Discloses to your visitors that you are not receiving compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs your visitors that you will benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing.
• Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site

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

Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually

If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend adding a legal folder to your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder (e.g. via FTP) …

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

You can then easily add links to these legal pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …

(WordPress Menu)

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

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

To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar, see this tutorial:

• Using WordPress Widgets

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Visit this site to learn more:

• Find Legal Forms

Alternatively, you can purchase a set of legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website templates were created 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 add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as described earlier.

Go here for more info:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, you can simplify things by using a plugin.

Here are some plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs you may be interested in checking out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)

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

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you time.

Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages:

• Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other page on your site.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks only when user agrees to your terms.
• Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your main WordPress dashboard section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)

This lets you create, view and edit legal pages from your 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/review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Page Type)

You can also select from several pre-configured 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:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro 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 And Conditions
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro – 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 less than one minute and the plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.

Visit this site to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire a legal expert.

We want your business to be legally protected!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal content, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

Legal Pages Generator quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by third-party sites that you may decide to promote or sell online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended 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 provide no legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law in your country or region.

Additional Resources

Here is a useful list of additional sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to stay compliant and meet legal requirements and guidelines:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
• FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
• Better Business Bureau – 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
• United States 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
• 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 presented above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.

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