Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you recommend or use?
Online laws and regulations are designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to anyone who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Every website owner risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not excuse you from being slapped with a legal notice.
New laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for material gain, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the (US based) 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)
The introduction of these laws has consequences for several business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
Without certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal could close down your account and freeze your funds, Facebook will reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed to promote various advertising or online marketing networks.
If your website is not in compliance, you could end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your site are subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern online business practices, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you may be selling on your site, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your websites become more compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice about your website or business. As stated previously, this article is designed only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws that govern your business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you promote
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if any of these situations were to occur:
- A user has a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
- The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives people allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you’ll do with their details.
- Someone copies your content and puts it up on their own site.
- You have not divulged to your site visitors that you are marketing a product as an affiliate and could derive a sales commission if they end up purchasing via your link.
- You didn’t spell out the conditions of your return policies.
- Someone claims that your testimonials are misleading and decides to sue you because of it.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your site includes adult information and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider now the following documented examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would be required to give up personal information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
- 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 users from scraping Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars 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% were in violation of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 risk of litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Online Seller Of Any Service Or Product
It’s vitally important to make sure that your website has the right legal pages and information displayed to all you site visitors.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of many companies you do business with online.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information if using many of their products and features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Earning revenue online with your websites using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information-based products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need 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 (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners 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 making sure that your site is compliant with FTC regulations.
There are 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 additional references and links to resources at the end of this article …
(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to create social networking applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook apps 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve ever wondered whether “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, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If your website is lacking in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should keep you out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and external service providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above pages, you may want to look into including one or more of the following pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides financial advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Audio/Video Terms (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add the right disclosures to your website. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets your visitors be aware that you will not receive for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors be aware that you may benefit financially if they purchase through your affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have received a review or sample copy of the product by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Informs visitors that you have been compensated in some way to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages Content To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this prepared, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legals directory on your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then easily add links to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your site) so that visitors can access legal information from every page …
(Display links to your legal information to users on all of your website’s pages)
If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer using widgets, see this step-by-step tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
More info:
Another option is to purchase a set of cut and paste legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms)
These legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission regulations 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 added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.
More information:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal web pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a 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.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages:
- Built-in Templates – The plugin gives you access to over 20 built-in legal templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you will need in a few minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- 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 legal pages like every other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. Page unlocks and can be accessed only when users agree to your legal terms.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your main navigation area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate/review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type menu)
Select from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WP 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
Visit the plugin website to learn more this great plugin:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users that includes over twenty customizable legal templates for your online presence …
For more details go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
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 & Conditions
- Earnings Disclaimer
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin – 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 plugin licensing is very flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell).
More info:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some form of basic legal protection on your site until you can afford legal services.
We want your site to be legally safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or a plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies and any guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party products and services that you may decide to promote or recommend online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect consumers, you’re breaking the law.
Non-compliance 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 cannot provide legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.
Resources
Here is a useful list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay 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 – BBB
- 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
- United States 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
- Google 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
We hope this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)