Tag: Make WordPress Site Legally Compliant

If you do any kind of business online, you do not want to suddenly discover that you have been operating on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital era continues to grow at such a fast pace and rules keep changing, it’s vital that you try to stay on top of what’s going on and make sure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations, especially if your web presence is an important factor in your overall business strategy.

New laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their sites clearly state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for profit, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

These laws affect several business activities, including:

• Any type of advertising, including contextual advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketers
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

Without legal pages on your website (e.g. terms of service, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t let you list your digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will reject your web applications, and you will not be allowed to enroll in a number of advertising and online merchant networks.

If your online presence is not compliant, you could also end up facing a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this post is to make you aware that your site(s) are required to comply with certain legalities according to laws that govern business practices online, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of third-party providers whose services or products you may be endorsing on your site, and that there are easy solutions that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the plugins discussed further below.

Is Your Website Breaking Rules Or Regulations?

Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must 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.

The Importance Of Making Your Website Compliant

Is your business at risk? Consider what would happen to your business if any of these scenarios were to happen:

• A person has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone who purchases from your link skin rashes.
• You’ve informed your subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you plan to do with the information you’ve collected.
• Someone copies content from your site and puts it up on their own site.
• There is no statement on your site making your site visitors aware that you’re an affiliate for the product you’re recommending and will earn an affiliate commission if they decide to buy via your affiliate link.
• You haven’t spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
• Someone claims your testimonials are false and decides to sue you.
• You have not disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children from accessing it.

Consider also the actual examples of costly compliance breaches listed below:

• 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. 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 children’s private information.
• 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, resulting thousands of $$$ 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 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were breaking 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 with warnings or lose access entirely 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 a target of litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• PPA (Pay Per Action) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Promoter
• AdSense Publisher
• Niche Marketer
• Amazon Associate
• EBay Seller
• Adult Content Publisher
• Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
• Seller Of Any Product Or Service Online

it’s important to ensure that your website or blog remains legally compliant.

Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.

Complying with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.

You are required to let your visitors know that your website complies with all necessary legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you do business with online.

For example:

Google requires websites to display legal information if using their services or features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Monetizing your WordPress blog using Google AdSense ads …

(Google AdSense ads policy requirements)

And even promoting your services using Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell products online through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will be required to add a number of legal pages to your website before your products are approved for selling via their marketplace …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for product vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission also requires that you display clear disclaimers and policies on your site, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site To Be Compliant

New FTC regulations governing the conduct of businesses online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many business are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As documented on their website, 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 do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any 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 online business resources that can provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help you comply with FTC requirements. See the additional references and useful resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(You must word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications - Don’t Forget These

If you plan to create apps that integrate with your site, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Social networking apps 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 it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
• If you are considering promoting anything on your site via affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay ads, or use Google AdWords pay-per-click ads 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts shut down.
• If you have ever wondered whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to protect yourself and your website.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies)

What Compliance Pages Should You Add To Your Website To Be Compliant?

If you suspect that your website lacks in terms of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us
• Contact Us
• Privacy Statement
• Terms And Conditions
• Website Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above pages, you may want to consider implementing any of the pages listed below if applicable:

• Affiliate Disclosure (e.g. if you promote or sell affiliate products or services)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides general financial information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Audio/Video Terms Of Use (if you provide users with access to videos or audio files on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

It’s important to add the correct types of disclosure pages to your site. For example:

• No Material Connection – Informs users that you’re not being paid for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Disclosure that informs visitors that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Sample Or review Copy – Discloses to readers that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to your readers that you were compensated in some way to write the article.
• 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 website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Website

Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.

Upload Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), 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 server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this folder using FTP …

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in 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 administration …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Website

Make sure that your legal pages are fully up-to-date and clearly accessible to all site visitors. You can insert these into your WordPress sidebar (or place them in the footer of your site) to ensure that visitors have access to legal information from every web page …

(It’s important to display legal pages to users on all of your website’s pages)

If you need help adding links to pages on your sidebar and footer, see this tutorial:

• How To Use Widgets

Legal Templates

You can find attorney-prepared downloadable website forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting websites like the ones listed below:

Find Legal Forms

(Find Legal Forms)

More info:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to purchase a set of website legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

Cut & Paste website 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 business details, then pasted into your legal pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Pages include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance
• Privacy Policy: Google, DART, etc.
• 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 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 web server as previously described.

More information:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Plugins

In addition to using legal templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use plugins.

Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin)

If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider installing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages …

WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a reasonably low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you time.

Here are just some of the benefits of using WP Legal Pages plugin:

• Built-in Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and 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 legal pages just like any other WP page.
• Custom Shortcodes Integration – 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 other WP page.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lockdown. Page unlocks and can be accessed when the user agrees to your terms.
• New Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a menu feature will display inside your WP dashboard area …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)

This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

You can easily create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, affiliate websites, AdSense sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal pages)

Select from various built-in legal templates …

(WP 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

Visit the plugin website to learn more this plugin:

• WordPress Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin

complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …

Learn We have written a detailed article about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

(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 & Conditions
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro For WordPress – 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 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 information, go here:

• Legal Suite Pro

If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your website until you can afford to hire a lawyer.

We want your website to be 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-written legal page templates, or a WordPress legal pages plugin - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, 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 business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with government legal requirements and any guidelines and terms of service required by third-party sites that you may be promoting or selling online. If your website isn’t compliant with laws designed to protect the rights of consumers, 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 offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with the law wherever your business is based.

Additional Legal Information

Below is a time-saving list of sites we recommend you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to remain compliant and meet its legal obligations:

• Federal Trade Commission 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
• US Copyright Office

Additionally …

• Google 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 the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress site.

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