Is your WordPress website legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose services or products you are recommending or advertising?
As the digital economy continues growing at an extraordinary rate and rules keep changing, it’s important that you try to stay informed about what’s happening and to make sure that your website or blog remains compliant, especially if having an online presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your website for commercial gain, then you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the 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 Website)
The new laws has legal consequences for several business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, including pay-per-click advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to sell digital products, PayPal may suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend web applications, and you will not be allowed to participate in various advertising and online merchant networks.
You may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website(s) may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws that govern your business, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of external providers whose services or products you may be endorsing online, and that there are plugins for WordPress that can help your sites become fully compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.
Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice on this website. You must carry out your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever your business is located.
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Is your business at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A user has a cardiac arrest after using your online workout program.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users an allergic reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you will not sell their information, but you haven’t informed them exactly what you plan to do with it.
- Someone copies content from your website and publishes it on their site.
- There is no statement on your website making visitors aware that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and could earn a sales commission if they purchase it.
- You haven’t spelled out the terms of your return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are false and decide to sue you because of it.
- You did not disclose that you were given a free copy in your product review.
- Your site contains adult content and you haven’t taken appropriate measures to keep underaged persons from accessing it.
Consider too these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card info to complete an offer they were promoting. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a whopping $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing private details about children.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
- An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites picked at random, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had broken at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had infringed 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 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 exposed to litigation through non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
it’s important to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and information displayed to all site users.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Services Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your site users know that your website complies will all laws and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your business, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will interact with online.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display certain information when using many of their products and features. This includes Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your website using Google AdSense advertising …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your site through Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell products online via places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add certain legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale …
(Policy requirements for ClickBank vendors)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell products using testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many sites are still 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 companies in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any kind of money-making activity online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
You can find many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps - Don’t Forget These
If you plan to create applications that integrate with your site, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about your legal pages …
(Apps that interface with social networking sites also require compliance)
- If you are unsure whether 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 products or services online using affiliate marketing, or generating revenue online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or use Google AdWords to drive visitors to your pages, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to provide on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts terminated.
- If you’ve been wondering whether “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 third-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
Essential Legal Pages You Should Add To Your Website
If you suspect that your web site is lacking in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website will keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection authorities and third-party providers, and even help you avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimers
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into adding one or more of these legal pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides information about financial areas or income opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms Of Use (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding correct disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you will not be receiving any form of payment for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets readers be aware that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate link.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to your readers that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been created, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Upload Legal Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in typical web page format (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal directory in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory using FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)
You can then easily add links to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and display clearly to your visitors. You can insert these into your sidebar (or place them in the footer of your website) to ensure that users have access to legal information from every web page …
(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your website’s pages)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu using widgets, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Using Ready-Made Legal Templates
You can find attorney-drafted disclosures and downloadable website forms and agreements just by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones shown below:
Find Legal Forms
(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-drafted legal forms)
More information:
Alternatively, you can purchase a package of cut and paste website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages were written by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own business details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines brought into effect in 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (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 page on your website for every legal form you want to add to your website, 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 details:
WordPress Legal Page Plugins
As well as using cut & paste templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use plugins.
Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages instead …
The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported plugin that will make the work of creating and implementing legal pages on your site much easier and save you loads of headaches.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Built-in Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal templates created by professional lawyers.
- Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Earnings Disclaimer and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to your pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your pages when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like every other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item is added to your dashboard menu section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Settings Area)
You have the option of easily creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
Select from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – 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
Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Compliance Bar – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
Compliance Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that contains over 20 customizable legal pages for your digital presence …
Learn more about the plugin 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 Service
- 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 site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites.
More information:
If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing at least some form of legal protection on your site until you can afford a solicitor.
We want your site to be legally safe!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-prepared legal content, or a WordPress plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you are making money online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with all laws and regulations and any guidelines and terms of service (TOS) required by third-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws intended to protect consumer rights, 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 do not provide legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements in your country or region.
Resources
Below is a time-saving list of sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to comply 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
- 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
- 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site.
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