One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a business owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.
As the internet continues to grow at breakneck speed and rules keep changing, it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening and make sure that your website remains legally compliant, especially if your web presence plays a significant part in your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their websites state that if you plan to promote anything on your site for material gain, you must follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection departments, such as the US-based Better Business Bureau, also called the BBB. Search online for information about “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)
These laws affect various business categories, 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 there are no legal pages on your site (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, financial disclaimers, etc.), many sites like Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products on their network, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a number of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
If your online presence is not in compliance, you could face a number of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!
The purpose of this post is to help make you aware that your website are subject to legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be offering online, and that there are solutions that can help your sites become more compliant, such as the plugins that we discuss further below.
Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Legal Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not offer legal advice. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website is compliant with all laws wherever you do business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider what the implications to your business would be in the following scenarios:
- A user has a cardiac arrest after using your online fitness workout.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate gives someone an allergic reaction.
- You’ve told subscribers that you will not sell their information, but you have not defined what you’ll do with the information you’ve collected.
- Someone copies content from your website and puts it up on their own site.
- There is no statement on your site telling your site users that you are an affiliate for the product you are selling that you may get paid a commission if visitors decide to purchase through your affiliate link.
- You have not spelled out the terms and conditions of your return policies.
- Someone claims the testimonials on your site are misleading and decides to sue you.
- You did not disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
- Your website contains adult-related information and you have not taken sufficient measures to keep underaged children 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 to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 prohibits using software that scrapes Users IDs. Many internet marketers took a risk 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% were breaking at least two 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 notices or lose access entirely to the Google program with the infringement, 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:
- CPA (Cost Per Action) Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
it’s important to make sure that your online business has the right legal pages and clearly accessible to all site users.
Compliance With 3rd-Party Companies Terms And Policies
Complying with 3rd-party companies terms and policies is important.
You must let your site users know that your website complies with all necessary laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you will engage with.
Here are just some examples:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using their products. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your website using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
And even promoting your site via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you sell products online with merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant networks, you will need to add certain legal pages before your products can be approved for selling via their network …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and policy statements to visitors, especially concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring 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 sites are unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this will most likely prompt 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 do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your site complies with all FTC regulations.
Many online business resources provide guidelines and examples on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …
(Structuring your disclaimers and disclosures correctly is important to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you plan to develop social networking applications that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with information about various legal pages …
(Facebook 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 sites like Google, Facebook, etc., it’s best to assume that you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue online with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, or driving visitors to your site with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need to display on your site to comply with all Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- 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 business.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use)
Essential Legal Pages To Include In Your Website
If your website or blog lacks in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website will help your site stay out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and external service providers, and even help you avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above pages, you may want to consider including one or more of the pages listed below where applicable:
- 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 provides financial information)
- Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site)
- Media Terms (e.g. if you provide users with access to download media on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding correct disclosure information to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets visitors be aware that you are not being paid for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets users be aware that you may benefit financially if they buy through affiliate links on your site.
- Review Or Sample Copy – Disclosure that informs site users that you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Lets your readers be aware that you were compensated in some form to write the article.
- Third Party Advertising – Informs visitors 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you should have your lawyer prepare the content of your legal documents. Once these have been completed, there are several ways to include them in your website.
Uploading Legal Pages Manually To Your Website
If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you as standard web pages (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload them for you.
We recommend adding a legals directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. using FTP) …
(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages using FTP)
You can then add a link to these pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(WordPress Menu)
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are up-to-date and display clearly to all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your website) so that users can access legal information from all of your pages …
(Display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)
We have written a detailed tutorial about adding links to pages on your sidebar menu using widgets here:
Legal Templates
You can find downloadable attorney-drafted disclosures and internet forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
More information:
Another option is to download a set of cut and paste legal templates created by attorney Scott Talbert to protect businesses online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Forms)
Cut & Paste website legal templates feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with simple search and replace to add your own business name and URL, then pasted into your pages.
The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer: multi-discipline professional disclaimers
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- 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 page for each legal form you want to add to your site, then paste the content from the templates into your web pages and publish or upload the pages to your web server as described earlier.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress Legal Plugins
As well as using templates, another option for adding legal pages to your site is to use plugins.
Here are some WordPress plugins worth looking into:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of creating legal pages manually feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a very affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you time.
Some of the reasons to consider using WP Legal Pages plugin are:
- Pre-written Templates – Over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – You can set up most of the basic legal pages you will need in around 3 minutes with a few mouse clicks.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit all legal pages just like any other WP page.
- Custom Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to your website or blog pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your content when published.
- Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple checkbox and delete and manage these like any other WordPress page.
- Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to your legal terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – More features are being added to this plugin with every new version.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear inside your WordPress dashboard section …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Menu)
This lets you view, create and edit legal pages from the admin area …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites, affiliate/review websites, Amazon sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
You can also select from a number of built-in 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 this WordPress plugin, go here:
Compliance Bar – WP Website Compliance Plugin
complete website compliance & disclaimer solution …
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Legal Suite Pro
(Legal Suite Pro)
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 And Conditions
- 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 less than one minute and the license allows you to install and use the plugin on all of your websites.
To learn more, visit this site:
If hiring a lawyer to create your legal pages is currently out of your budget, consider implementing at least some form of legal protection on your site until you can afford professional legal services.
We want your business to be safe!
Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal documentation, or a plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate necessary legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you make money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and any guidelines and terms of service required by 3rd-party services and products that you may decide to promote or advertise online. Your website 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?
Legal Disclaimer: Once again, we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice. Do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with the law concerning your specific business.
Legal Resources
Below is a time-saving list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what your business requires to stay compliant and meet legal obligations:
- FTC Latest List Of Rules & Regulations
- Federal Trade Commission Advertising & Marketing Rules Of the Road
- FTC Advertising And Marketing On The Internet
- Better Business Bureau – 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
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
- 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 add legal pages to your WordPress site.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)