Is your website legally compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose services or products you do business with?
As the internet continues to grow at an overwhelming speed and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s important that you stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website remains legal, especially if having a digital presence is important in the success of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for commercial gain, then you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory departments, such as the (US based) BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online for information about “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of these laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, including text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If you do not include certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank will not allow you to list your digital products for sale, PayPal could suspend your account, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed to promote a range of advertising or online marketing networks.
If your business online is not in compliance, you could face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this guide is to help make you aware that your website(s) are subject to legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose services or products you may be offering on your site, and that there are easy solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your site become compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.
Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice in this article. As stated previously, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal requirements in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of providers whose products or services you recommend on your website
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider for a moment what the implications to your business would be if any of the scenarios below were to occur:
- A user has a heart attack after they use your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you promote as an affiliate gives someone an adverse reaction.
- You’ve informed subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you’ll do with the information you have collected.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own website.
- You haven’t advised your site visitors that you are promoting a product as an affiliate that you may earn a financial benefit if visitors purchase using your affiliate link.
- You haven’t spelled out the conditions of your return policies.
- Your visitors claim the testimonials on your site are false and try to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult content and you didn’t take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider now the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches described:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete his offer. 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 details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many internet marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of dollars 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 breaking at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of at least three 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 they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s imperative to ensure that your website remains fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
All the leading websites and government regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of complying with the terms and policies of 3rd-party service providers.
You are obligated to let your site users know that your website complies with laws and professional guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display legal information when using many of their services or features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your WordPress blogs using Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your business via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online via companies such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you are required to add a number of legal pages to your site before your products can be approved for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. you should protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines.
You can find many business resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your business comply with FTC requirements. See our additional resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)
Don’t Forget Social Media Applications
If you plan to develop applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about various 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 companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote anything online as an affiliate marketer, or monetize your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
- If you have ever wondered if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party services require you to comply with their policies and guidelines)
Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website or blog lacks in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your website should help your website keep out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to consider including one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website provides general health or medical advice)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Use Of Media (if you provide users with access to download videos or audio files on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets visitors be aware that you will not receive any kind of payment for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Informs your readers that you will benefit financially if they buy through an affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Informs site users that you have received a sample or review copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Informs readers that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets 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 Compliance Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage 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 folder on your server and uploading your legal pages to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)
You can then easily add links to your legal pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu admin area …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) so that visitors have access to the information from all your pages …
(Display legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about displaying links to pages on your WP sidebar or footer using widgets, see this tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable forms and agreements by searching online, or by going to sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
To learn more, go here:
Another option is to download a package of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to insert your own business name and URL, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new FTC regulations and guidelines brought into effect on March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new page on your website for every legal form you want added to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as previously described.
More info:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using copy & paste legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use a plugin.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your site seems too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your site a lot easier and save you many headaches.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Templates – 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 your basic legal pages in a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages just like every other WP page.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to your terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – More features get added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your navigation menu section …
(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages – Create different legal page types)
You can also choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress 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, visit this site:
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
For more details go here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin)
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 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 site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
Go here for more information:
If hiring legal experts to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your website to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider choosing one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal page templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to easily 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, you need to ensure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and the terms of service and guidelines of third-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your website or blog must comply with a number of laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not even be aware of.
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?
Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we cannot offer legal advice here. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.
Legal Resources
Here is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to comply and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- BBB – 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
- United States Patent and Trademark Office
- US Copyright Office
In Addition …
- 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 you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive methods and resources.
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