As a website owner, the last thing you want to do is to find yourself on the wrong side of the law.
As digital business continues growing at breakneck speed and the rules keep changing, it’s vital to try and stay informed about what’s going on and make sure that your website remains legal, especially if having a digital presence plays an important part in your overall business strategy.
New laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for material gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the (US based) Better Business Bureau, also referred to as 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 introduction of these new laws has implications for several business activities, including:
- Any form of advertising, like Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
Without legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in a number of advertising or online marketing networks.
If your online business is not compliant, you could also face a whole range of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your site may be required to comply with various legalities according to laws that govern your business, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be advertising on your website, and that there are solutions that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with all laws in your country or region.
Understanding The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider for a minute what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not informed them exactly what you will do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your site letting visitors know that you are promoting a product as an affiliate and could receive a sales commission if visitors buy it.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you.
- You did not disclose that you were given a free copy in your product review.
- Your website publishes adult information and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider now the actual examples of costly compliance breaches listed below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, they’re now required to provide everyone he does business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- A social networking app developer copped a whopping $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 internet marketers took a risk 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 chosen at random, 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 notices or lose access to the Google program with the violation, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to be exposed to the risks of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your website or blog has the right legal pages and information accessible to your site users.
Complying With 3rd-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
Leading online companies and government agencies that regulate trade in most countries emphasize the importance of complying with the terms and policies of service providers.
You must let your site users know that your business complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their products or features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your WordPress blog with Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell digital products using places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you are required to add legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for vendors selling through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to add clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Comply
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted 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 has happened in the past, this typically ends up with 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 any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
You can find many business resource sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your business meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references and links to resources at the end of this article …
(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to develop apps for your site, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to 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 generate revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site using Google AdWords, 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 suspended.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Essential Legal Pages To Add To Your Site
If your website lacks in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following legal pages to your website will help your site stay out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external providers, and avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website or blog provides information about health or medical areas)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
It’s important to add the right disclosure information to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Informs your readers that you will not be receiving any type of payment for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you may derive some form of financial benefit if they act on your recommendation and purchase through your affiliate links.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets site users be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets readers be aware that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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.
Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should consult lawyers and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory in your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to these pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and display clearly to all visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that users will be able to access legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets, refer to this tutorial:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared internet forms and agreements by searching online, or going to websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Visit this site to learn more:
Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission guidelines that came into effect on March 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 page on your website for each legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your server as previously described.
Go here for more information:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider choosing WordPress Legal Pages …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like any other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your 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 page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When the user agrees to your terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item is added to your dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
You can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review sites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
Choose from several pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 site for more details about this handy plugin:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …
More info:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
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 Use
- 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 have packaged high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers 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 license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your sites.
Go here for more information:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a solicitor.
We want your website to be protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal forms, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you easily generate essential 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 engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) provided by 3rd-party sites that you may decide to promote or offer 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on our website. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
References And Legal Resources
Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires 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
- 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
In Addition …
- Google 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
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your website using simple and inexpensive resources and plugins.
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