Is your WordPress site legally compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are doing business with?
Online laws, regulations, and guidelines were designed to protect consumers and apply to anyone who sells, markets or promotes goods or services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not excuse someone from taking legal action against your business.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, then you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
The introduction of these new laws has legal ramifications for several online business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, like inline advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal may close down your account and withhold payment of your funds, Facebook could reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to promote various advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
This guide explains the importance of having a compliant website and provides simple and inexpensive ways that will help make your website or blog legally compliant in minutes.
Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice. As stated previously, this article is designed only to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations governing business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you advertise
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Consider for one minute what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A person suffers a cardiac arrest after they use your online workout program.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate gives someone who purchases from your link an allergic reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you will do with the details you’ve collected.
- Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their own site.
- You haven’t informed your visitors that you are an affiliate for the product you are promoting that you will receive a commission if visitors end up purchasing using your link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are fake and tries to sue you because of it.
- You didn’t disclose that you have received a free copy of the product you reviewed.
- Your website publishes adult content and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.
Consider also 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 personal information (including credit card info to complete a debt reduction 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 private information about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service prohibits using software that scrapes UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independently-conducted 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 in breach of at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 notices or lose access to the Google program whose policies they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how easy it is to risk being targeted for non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords User
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Affiliate
- EBay Seller
- Adult Content Publisher
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to ensure that your website is fully compliant with the law.
Complying With Third-Party Companies - ToS, Policies, etc.
Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your visitors know that your website complies will all legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your site, it’s also a requirement of most companies you engage with.
For example:
Google requires websites to display legal information if using many of their services or features. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your blog using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)
And even promoting your services or products through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell products online with places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you will need to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to add clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Comply
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted 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 already been the case, this often prompts 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 plan to 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. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your site is compliant with all FTC regulations.
A number of sites provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful 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 applications for your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Apps that integrate with 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., then it’s best to 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, eBay or Amazon ads, or driving visitors to your website with 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 terminated.
- If you have been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use)
Common Legal Pages You Should Include In Your Website
If your website or blog is lacking in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.
At its most basic, adding the following compliance pages to your website should help keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and external providers, and even help to avoid possible legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “cease and desist” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into including any of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you provide information about affiliate products or services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general health or medical information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Video/Audio Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the correct type of disclosure is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you will not receive compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Notifies site users that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through an affiliate link.
- Sample Or review Copy – Informs site users that you have received a review or sample copy of the product.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that informs users that you have been 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 show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
How To Add Compliance Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once this has been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to these pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that visitors have access to the information from every page …
(Display links to legal information on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar or footer, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Store-Bought Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted website forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Legal forms)
More information:
Another option is to purchase a set of legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut & 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 customized with a simple quick search and replace to add your own business name and URL, 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 (This proprietary FTC page reflects Federal Trade Commission guidelines brought into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
- ToS & Conditions of Use: with inter- & intra-page redundancy, Contra Proferentem provision, reservation of rights, and exclusive social media admonition.
You can either create a new WordPress page for every 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 server as previously described.
For more details, go here:
WordPress Legal Plugins
In addition to using templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.
Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …
This plugin is not free, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website much easier and save you time.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in a few 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 Service, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages like any page on your website.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when you publish.
- 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 or post lockdown. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- New Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu feature will appear in your dashboard section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, review sites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)
You can also choose from a number of 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 to learn more this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Website Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal page templates for your site …
More info:
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 Service
- 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 this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
More information:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some type of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional assistance from a legal expert.
We want your site to be safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or consider using one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal forms, or plugins - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator allows you to quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you do any type of business online, you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service of 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. If your website doesn’t comply with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with the law pertaining to your business.
Resources
Here is a time-saving list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet its legal requirements and guidelines:
- Federal Trade Commission Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau Website
- 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
Also …
- 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 using inexpensive methods and solutions.
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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)