Is your website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose services or products you are using or recommending?
Internet laws, regulations, and guidelines are designed to protect consumers and apply to any person who sells, markets or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about the law will not prevent you from being slapped with a legal notice.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 to regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the US-based BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The introduction of new laws has consequences for various online business activities, including:
- Any type of advertising, including pay-per-click advertising
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Blogging
- etc.
If your site does not display certain pages to visitors (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank won’t let you list digital products on their network, PayPal could suspend your account and freeze your funds, Facebook could suspend your applications, and you will not be accepted into many advertising and online marketing networks.
In addition, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.
This guide explains why it’s important to have a legally compliant website and lists inexpensive methods and solutions that will help make your WordPress site legally compliant.
Is Your Site Breaking Rules Or Regulations?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. As stated above, the aim of this article is to help make you aware that your website may be subject to a number of legal policies in accordance with federal, regional or local laws and regulations that govern business online and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you promote on your website or blog
Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant
Are you at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if these situations were to occur:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after purchasing your online fitness workout.
- The skin care lotion you promote as an affiliate gives a number of users skin rashes.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly spelled out what you’ll do with it.
- Someone steals your content and publishes it on their site.
- You haven’t informed visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and could earn a commission if visitors end up purchasing using your affiliate link.
- You did not spell out the terms of your refund policies.
- A visitor claims that your testimonials are false and tries to sue you as a result.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website publishes adult information and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider now the actual case studies of costly compliance breaches below:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. In addition to a substantial $390,000 fine, he was also ordered to provide everyone they do business with for the next 20 years, a copy of the judgement — including employees.
- 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 details.
- Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape 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 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred websites chosen at random, more than 90% had breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were breaking at least two 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 to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could become exposed to the risks of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdWords User
- Info Product Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s imperative to do whatever is necessary to make sure that your online business remains fully compliant with the law.
Compliance With Third-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Complying with third-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of many companies you will interact with online.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information if using their services. This includes using Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your websites with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)
And even promoting your services through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you plan to sell information products through places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will need to add a number of legal pages to your site before your products are approved for sale in their marketplace …
(Policy requirements digital product vendors using ClickBank)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policies to visitors, especially when using product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Site Is Compliant
New FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. you should protect your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
There are many resources sites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help your site meet FTC requirements. We provide references and links to resources to a number of these at the end of this article …
(You must structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly 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, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others will require you to provide information about various legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether or not you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online as an affiliate marketer, or making money online with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, 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, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party services require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)
Common Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in terms of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website should help your website stay out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external service providers, and avoid potential legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages if applicable:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your website is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you will not receive any kind of payment for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Informs site users that you may be compensated if they act on your recommendation and buy through an affiliate link.
- Review/Sample Copy – Explains to your readers that you have received a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to 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 comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Website
Ideally, you will consult a lawyer and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your site, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend creating a legal folder in your web server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(WordPress Menu)
Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site
Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website or blog) to ensure that visitors will be able to access legal information from every web page …
(Display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)
We have created a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your WordPress sidebar here:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
More info:
Another option is to download a set of website legal templates written by attorney Scott Talbert …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with search and replace to insert your own details, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects FTC guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service (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 your legal pages to your web server as described previously.
Go here for more info:
WordPress Legal Plugins
As well as using copy & paste templates, another option for adding legal pages to your website is to use plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress websites worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Templates – Includes 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 the legal pages you need in around 3 minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – Content editor lets you edit legal pages just like every other WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog 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 WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when users agree to your terms.
- New Features – More features are being added to this plugin with each new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a menu item is added to your main dashboard area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Legal Pages Menu)
This lets you create, edit and view legal pages from your admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)
You can create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate websites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)
Choose from a number of pre-configured legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Pre-configured 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 about this plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress
total website compliance and disclaimer solution …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(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 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 powered site. Your legal pages can be installed and set up on your site in one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
Go here for more details:
If using the services of a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is currently out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.
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 documents, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator lets you easily generate necessary 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 engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies and any terms of service and guidelines for 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or recommending online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, many 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?
Disclaimer: Once again, please note that we are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice on our website. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website fully complies with the law concerning your specific business.
References And Legal Resources
Here is a useful list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what your business requires to comply and meet 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
- 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
Plus …
- 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 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 essential legal pages to your website or blog using inexpensive methods, resources and WordPress plugins.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now