Tag: Legal Pages

As a business owner, the last thing you want is to find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

Online laws were 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 the law won’t protect you from being slapped with a legal notice.

New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau)

The new laws affect several business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, including Google AdWords
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could disapprove web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.

If your website is not in compliance, you could end up facing a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

In this guide, we discuss why it’s important to have a compliant website and explain inexpensive resources and solutions to make your WordPress site compliant quickly and easily.

Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?

Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. As previously stated, the aim of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations that govern business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you endorse on your website or blog

Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important

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

• A customer has a cardiac arrest 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 let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t spelled out exactly what you plan to do with the information you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your website and publishes it on their own site.
• There is no statement on your website letting visitors know that you are an affiliate for the product you are marketing that you will derive an affiliate commission if visitors buy it.
• You did not spell out the terms of your return policies.
• Online visitors claim your testimonials are fake and try to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy of a product you are reviewing.
• Your site includes adult-related information and you haven’t taken sufficient 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 have to give up personal information (including credit card details to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private information.
• 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, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had broken 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 notices or lose access 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 becoming targeted for non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA or PPA Marketer
• Multilevel Marketer
• Affiliate Product Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Publisher Of Adult Content
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

You need to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information accessible to all site visitors.

Complying With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies

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

You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also required in most cases by most companies you will engage with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires websites 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 with your WordPress sites with Google AdSense advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

Or promoting your services through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell products online via merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add various legal pages to your website before they will approve your products for sale …

(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements on your website, especially if you plan to sell products and services with the aid of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As has happened in the past, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take 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 FTC guidelines and regulations.

You can find many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references at the end of this article …

(You must structure 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 applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about your legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• If you are not sure whether or not you may be 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 are considering promoting anything online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon ads, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required 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, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)

What Legal Information Pages Should I Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If your website is falling short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your site will help keep you out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

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

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

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you sell or promote affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Links Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides content about health or medical areas)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Video/Audio Terms (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding the right disclosure information is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Discloses to site users that you’re not receiving compensation for writing the post.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may receive compensation if they buy through your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets readers be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Lets users know that you were compensated in some form to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets your visitors know 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.

How To Add Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you should have a lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in 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 web server, or have someone upload them for you.

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

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then add links to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can add these to the WordPress sidebar (or the footer section of your website) so that visitors will be able to access the information from all of your 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 or footer in WordPress here:

• How To Use WordPress Widgets

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)

Visit this website for more information:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to purchase a set of cut & paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut And 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 simple quick search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your legal web pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page 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 and guidelines that came into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
• Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new WordPress page for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload these to your web server as described previously.

More info:

• Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates

Legal Pages – Plugins

In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use 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 you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using WordPress Legal Pages instead …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, 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 benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Editable Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any page on your website.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your main WP dashboard area …

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)

With WPLegal Pages, you have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, niche sites, Amazon sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Type of Site dropdown menu)

Select from several pre-configured legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Built-In 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 plugin, visit the plugin site:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over twenty customizable compliance templates for your website …

More info:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress)

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 Service
• 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 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 the plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance from a legal firm.

We want your website to be protected!

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 templates, or a plugin as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

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

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you make money online, you need to ensure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service for third-party sites that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website doesn’t comply 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?

Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant 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
• 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 …

• Google 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 legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website using simple methods and resources.

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