Is your WordPress site legal? Do you know if your site is breaking any laws, rules or regulations, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any companies whose products or services you advertise or recommend?
As the digital era continues to grow at such a rapid pace and rules constantly change, it’s important to stay informed about what’s happening and make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, 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 state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you will need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do a search online for “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 new laws affect various business categories, including:
- Any type of advertising, e.g. Google AdWords
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your site does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, earning disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank or JVZoo will not allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook could disapprove your web applications, and you will not be allowed into a number of advertising or affiliate merchant networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
In this guide, we look at the importance of having a legally compliant website and how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site.
Does Your Site Comply With The Law?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice on this website. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all legal requirements wherever you do business.
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Consider for a moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- Someone has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
- The skin care creams you promote as an affiliate marketer gives someone allergic reactions.
- You’ve told your subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you will do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their site.
- There is no statement on your website or blog making visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re selling that you could derive financial benefits if visitors buy through your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the conditions of your refund policies.
- Your visitors claim that your testimonials are misleading and decide to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
- Your site contains adult information and you haven’t taken sufficient measures to restrict access by underage children.
Consider now 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 their personal information (including credit card information to complete an offer they were promoting. In addition to a hefty $390,000 fine, he was also ordered 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 received a massive $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 Users IDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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 picked at random, more than 90% were in violation 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 infringement, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could be exposed to the risk of litigation?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Product Publisher
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Adult Content Publisher
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
it’s important to make sure that your digital presence has the right legal pages and clearly displayed to site users.
Complying With Third-Party Services
Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your business complies will all legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you do business with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires you to display legal information when using many of their services. This includes using services like Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Monetizing your site with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)
And even promoting your business through Google AdWords …
(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)
If you sell information products using merchants such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you will need to add various legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(Policy requirements product vendors using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially if you plan to sell or promote products using product testimonials or endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensure That Your Website Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will easily reveal that many websites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As has already been the case, this typically prompts the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute companies 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 chances. Even if your business is not located in the U.S. it’s best to protect your business interests by ensuring that your website is compliant with FTC regulations.
You can find many resources online 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 …
(Wording your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of the law)
Social Media Apps Also Require Compliance
If you plan to create applications that will integrate with your website, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others will require you to provide access to various legal pages …
(Apps for social networks also require compliance)
- If you are unsure as to whether or not you are 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 are considering promoting services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or make money online with Google AdSense, eBay or Amazon advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you are required to display on your site to comply with all 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 avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most 3rd-party websites require you to comply with their policies)
What Compliance Information Do I Need To Add To My Website To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then this section will help you.
Adding the following legal pages to your site should keep your business out of trouble with most consumer protection agencies and external providers, and avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us Page
- Contact Us
- Privacy Statement
- Terms Of Use
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the pages above, you may want to consider including one or more of the pages listed below:
- Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Earnings Disclaimer
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides money-making advice)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
It’s important to add correct disclosure information to your site. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Discloses to site users that you will receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Lets users be aware that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets readers 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.
Adding Legal Pages To Your Site
Ideally, you will have a lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, 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 as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your site, 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 directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder on your web server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then easily add a link to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Displaying Legal Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are fully up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can insert these into your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) so that visitors have access to legal information from every page …
(It’s important to display legal information to users on all of your site’s pages)
To learn more about adding links to pages on your sidebar using widgets, refer to this tutorial:
Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and forms and agreements by searching online, or visiting sites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms – Attorney-prepared legal forms)
For more details, go here:
Another option is to download a set of legal templates designed by attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
These templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with simple search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your web pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
- DMCA Compliance
- FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates new Federal Trade Commission regulations that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy
- ToS & Conditions of Use.
You can either create a new 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 these to your server as described earlier.
Go here for more details:
Legal Pages – Plugins
In addition to using cut & paste legal templates, you can keep things very simple using plugins.
Here are some great legal WordPress plugins you may be interested in checking out:
WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress
(WP Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing WordPress Legal Pages …
This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your website a lot easier and save you many headaches.
Here are just some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – 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 your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – Full WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like every other page on your site.
- Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any WP page.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When the user agrees to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
- New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will be added to your main navigation section …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to create, view and edit your legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages – Settings Area)
The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, AdSense sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Page type dropdown menu)
Choose from various pre-written legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Website Compliance Plugin
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress users with over 20 customizable legal templates for your digital presence …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress)
Legal Suite Pro Plugin For WordPress 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 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 one minute or less and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell).
Go here for more details:
If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.
We want your site to be legally protected!
Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator tool below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using legal documentation, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional 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), it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and the terms of service and guidelines for third-party products and services that you may decide to promote or use online. Your internet presence must comply with a whole range of laws and regulatory guidelines, some 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 is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.
Additional Legal Information
Here is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- FTC 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
- 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 the importance of having a legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly and easily add essential legal pages to your site using inexpensive resources and WordPress plugins.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum