Tag: Legal Pages

If you do any kind of business online, the last thing you want is to find yourself breaking laws, rules or regulations.

As digital business continues to grow at such a fast pace and rules constantly change, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website or blog remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if having a digital presence plays an important part in your overall business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also referred to as the 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)

The new laws affect several business categories, including:

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

Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t approve your digital products for sale, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in most advertising or affiliate merchant networks.

If your website is not compliant, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

This guide explains the importance of having a legally compliant website and describes simple and inexpensive ways that will make your WordPress site compliant.

Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing business practices online and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of 3rd-party companies whose products or services you recommend on your website

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Consider for a minute what would happen to your business if the scenarios below were to happen:

• A person suffers a heart attack after using your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
• Your opt-in list displays a statement letting subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not clearly spelled out what you plan to do with the information you have collected.
• Someone steals content from your website and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site letting your site users know that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and will earn an affiliate commission if visitors purchase it.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your refund/return policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are fake and decides to sue you because of it.
• You have not disclosed that you received a free copy in your product review.
• Your website contains adult content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underage persons from accessing it.

Consider too these documented case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would have to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required 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 information.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes 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 independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking 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 cautions 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 risk becoming a target of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPA Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdWords User
• Info Product Publisher
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
• Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online

You need to make sure that your online business stays legally compliant.

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

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

You must let your site visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you engage with online.

For example:

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

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your websites with Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense display advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your products via Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

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

(Policy requirements for ClickBank digital product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially regarding the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many sites are still 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 website owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you do any type 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 by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC guidelines.

There are many business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. See the references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Apps

If you plan to create social networking applications for your website users, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …

(Apps for social networking sites like Facebook 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 websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting products or services on your site as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or using Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to 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 and guidelines)

What Legal Information Do I Need To Add To My Site To Be Legally Compliant?

If you suspect that your web site 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 website should keep your business out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):

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

As well as the above pages, you may want to consider adding one or more of the following pages:

• Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
• Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to download media on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

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

• No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you’re not being paid for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets site users be aware that you will be compensated if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
• Review/Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have received a review or sample copy of the product by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Informs your visitors that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs readers 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 Compliance Pages To Your Website

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

Upload Legal Web Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

We recommend creating a legals folder in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this folder via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your server via FTP)

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

(Custom WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that users have access to the information from every web page …

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

For a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To The Blog Sidebar Menu

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• Find Legal Forms

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

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms)

Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.

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

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use: includes inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.

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

Go here to learn more:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates

Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins

In addition to using templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress websites and blogs worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)

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

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you loads of headaches.

Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages:

• Built-in Templates – Over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in a few minutes with a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easily editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. When a user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.

When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item will be added to your WP dashboard menu section …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)

This allows you to create, view and edit your legal pages from the admin area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

You can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review sites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal pages)

Choose from several built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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, visit this website:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WP Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a total compliance & disclaimer solution for your online presence …

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro

(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)

Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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. Your legal pages can be 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 websites (even sites that you decide to sell).

More information:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional legal services.

We want your business to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal templates, or a WordPress 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 stated earlier, if you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service for 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or use 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?

Legal Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice in this article. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law wherever your business is based.

Additional Information

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal obligations:

• FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
• Federal Trade Commission 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
• US Copyright Office

Additionally …

• 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog.

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