Is your website legal? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you do business with?
As the digital way of life continues growing at such a rapid pace and rules keep changing, it’s absolutely essential that you try to stay on top of what’s happening and ensure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also referred to as the BBB. Search online “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 activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, like Google AdWords or AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank will not approve digital products on their network, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enroll in various advertising and affiliate marketing networks.
In addition, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website(s) are required to comply with certain legalities in accordance with the laws that govern business practices online, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be advertising on your website, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress site owners that can help your sites become compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Is Your Site Breaking The Law?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all laws and regulations wherever your business operates in.
Why Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A user has a heart attack after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t described exactly what you’ll do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their own website.
- There is no statement on your website or blog letting your site visitors know that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re endorsing that you could derive a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- A visitor claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and decides to sue you as a result.
- You have not disclosed in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website publishes adult-related information and you did not take appropriate measures to restrict access by underage persons.
Consider too these real case studies of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he is now required to provide a copy of the judgement to everyone they do business with for the next 20 years — including employees.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many internet marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of dollars 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% were in breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had infringed at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in violation 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 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 targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- MLM Networker
- Affiliate Product Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Consultant Or Coach
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s vitally important to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business complies with all laws and regulations governing the use of your site, wherever you are located.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your site visitors know that your business complies will all laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using many of their services or product features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Earning revenue with your blog with Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
Or promoting your site using Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell digital products through merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements for selling through ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you display clear disclaimers and disclosures on your website, especially if you plan to sell or promote products and services using testimonials or product endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online reveals that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As documented on their website, this often results in the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business by ensuring that your site complies with all FTC regulations and guidelines.
There are many sites that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See our additional 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 develop applications for your website users, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Apps for social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of organizations like Google, Facebook, etc., then assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting services or products online as an affiliate marketer, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve 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 third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Site
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website will help keep your business out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party service providers, and avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “takedown” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Additionally, you may want to look into including any of the pages listed below where applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides financial content)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of web content disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you’re not receiving any form of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you may receive compensation if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs users that you have been given a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your visitors be aware that you have been 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 online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages Content To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer 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 Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legal directory to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add links to these pages from your WordPress site using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or the footer section of your site) to ensure that users have access to the information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu and footer in WordPress using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can easily find attorney-drafted downloadable website forms and agreements just by searching online, or by going to websites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More information:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut and paste website legal templates created by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & 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 quick search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & 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 website, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your server as described previously.
For more information, go here:
Legal Pages – WordPress Plugins
In addition to using legal templates, another option is to use plugins.
Here are some plugins for WordPress users that you should check out:
WP Legal Pages Plugin
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider installing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – You can add shortcodes to any of your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks only when users agree to your terms.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your main dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Legal Pages Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, medical sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page type dropdown menu)
Select from several pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
total website compliance & disclaimer solution …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro 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 And 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress powered site. You can have legal pages 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 the plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
For more details, go here:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some type of legal protection on your website until you can afford a solicitor.
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 content, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software allows you to quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
***
As stated earlier, if you do business online, you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service provided by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or advertising online. Your website or blog must comply with a whole set of regulations, some of which you may not even be aware of.
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, we are not lawyers and we offer no legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements in your country or region.
References And Resources
Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to stay compliant 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
- 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
Plus …
- 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
We hope this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site.
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com