Is your WordPress website compliant? Do you know if you are breaking any laws, or contravening the Terms of Service (TOS) of any 3rd-party companies whose products or services you recommend or offer?
As digital business continues to grow at an extraordinary rate and the rules keep changing, it’s absolutely essential that you try to stay informed about what’s happening and ensure that your website or blog remains legal, especially if having a digital presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your website 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 BBB, or Better Business Bureau. Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet to learn more.
(Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program – Better Business Bureau)
These laws has legal consequences for various online business categories, including:
- Any form of advertising, e.g. contextual ads
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Bloggers
- etc.
If your website does not display certain legal pages to visitors (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal could shut down your account, Facebook will suspend your web applications, and you won’t be allowed into a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
Plus, you could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to litigation.
The purpose of this guide is to make you aware that your site(s) may be subject to legal requirements, the importance of being compliant with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be using online, and that there are solutions that can help your site become more compliant, such as the plugins listed further below.
Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we do not provide legal advice. Do your own due diligence and we recommend consulting a legal expert about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements wherever you do business.
Why Having A Compliant Website Is Important
Consider for a moment what would happen to your business in the following scenarios:
- A customer has a heart attack after purchasing your online workout program.
- The skin care products you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone an adverse reaction.
- Your opt-in list displays a statement that lets subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you plan to do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
- There is no statement on your site letting your site visitors know that you are marketing a product as an affiliate that you will get paid a sales commission if they end up buying through your link.
- You don’t spell out the terms of your refund/return policies.
- Someone claims your testimonials are false and tries to sue you.
- You didn’t disclose that you were given a free copy in your product review.
- Your site contains adult-related content and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged children.
Consider too 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 personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. 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 Users IDs. 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 breached at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least two of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 to the Google program whose policies they had infringed, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).
Can you see how you could easily be exposed to the risk of non-compliance?
Regardless of whether you are a:
- CPA, CPC or PPA Marketer
- Multilevel Marketer
- Affiliate Product Promoter
- AdWords Advertiser
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Affiliate
- e-Commerce Store Owner
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Provider Of Freelance, Consulting Or Coaching Services
- Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service
It’s vitally important to make sure that your website has the right legal pages and information displayed to all site users.
Complying With Third-Party Companies
Compliance with 3rd-party services terms and policies is important.
You must let your site visitors know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only improves trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you do business with.
For example:
Google requires your site to display certain information when using their products. This includes Google Analytics …
(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)
Making money online with your WordPress sites using Google AdSense ads …
(Google AdSense ads - policy requirements)
Or promoting your products using Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information products using places like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you will be required to add a number of legal pages before they will approve your products for sale …
(ClickBank – policy requirements)
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) also requires that you include clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to use product testimonials or endorsements …
(Federal Trade Commission – consumer guidelines and regulations)
New FTC Regulations Require Your Website To Be Compliant
FTC regulations governing how business is conducted online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are still unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this often ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting site owners in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you do any type of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC regulations and guidelines.
You can find many online business resources that can provide guidelines for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide additional references and links to useful resources at the end of this article …
(It’s important to structure your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)
Don’t Forget Social Media Apps
If you are planning to develop applications that integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others with access to various legal pages …
(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)
- If you are unsure whether or not you may be breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of companies like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you are considering promoting products or services online using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue 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 need to include on your site to comply with their Terms Of Service and policy requirements to avoid having your accounts suspended.
- If you’ve been wondering whether “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, 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 policies)
What Compliance Information Pages Does Your Website Need To Be Insured Against Legal Compliance Issues?
If you suspect that your website or blog is falling short in areas of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your site will help you stay out of trouble with most regulatory agencies and 3rd-party providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues or even threats of legal action (e.g. “take down” notices):
- About Us Page
- Contact Page
- Privacy Statement
- Terms & Conditions
- Website Disclaimer
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
As well as the above, you may want to consider adding any of these pages where applicable:
- Affiliate Disclosure (if you promote or sell affiliate products and services)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Links Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (if your website provides content about financial areas or income opportunities)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Audio/Video Terms (if you allow media downloads on your site)
Disclosure Pages – Types
Adding the right type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – This lets users be aware that you will not receive compensation for writing the article.
- Affiliate Links – Lets your visitors know that you may be compensated if they buy through your affiliate links.
- Sample/Review Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to users that you were compensated in some way 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 Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Site
Ideally, you should consult your lawyer or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the content of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to add them to your website.
Upload Legal Web Pages Manually To Your Site
If someone prepares 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 creating a legals folder on your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory via FTP …
(Upload legal pages to your server using FTP)
You can then add links to your pages in WordPress using custom links in your menu feature …
(Custom WordPress Menu Feature)
Make sure that your legal pages are kept up-to-date and clearly accessible to your visitors. You can insert links to your legal pages into your sidebar menu (or the footer section of your website) so that users have access to the information from all pages …
(It’s important to display links to legal pages to visitors on all of your website’s pages)
To learn more about displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
Legal Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-prepared website forms and agreements by searching online, or by visiting sites like the ones listed below:
Find Legal Forms
(Find Legal Forms)
Go here for more info:
Alternatively, you can purchase a set of cut and paste legal templates drafted by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages
(Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal pages feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be easily customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.
The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Page Templates include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service & 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 for each legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload your legal pages to your web server as described earlier.
More info:
Plugins – Legal Pages
As well as using copy & paste legal templates, you can keep things very simple by using a plugin.
Here are some legal WordPress plugins that you should check out:
WordPress Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WP Legal Pages)
If the idea of manually setting up legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing WP Legal Pages instead …
WordPress Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s a low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your website and save you a great deal of time and effort.
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress Legal Pages:
- Pre-written Legal Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by a team of professional lawyers.
- Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.
- Customizable Pages – The plugin includes customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Editable Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit all legal pages like any other WP page.
- Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your WordPress 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 every other page on your site.
- Forced Options – Force page lock down. When users agree to the legal terms, the page unlocks, giving them access.
- Additional Features – The plugin is updated with new features when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will display inside your main WordPress dashboard section …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Menu)
This allows you to view, create and edit legal pages from your admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
The plugin gives you the option of creating legal pages for different types of websites, such as business websites with products, affiliate sites, e-commerce sites, etc …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Create different legal page types)
You can also choose from several built-in legal templates …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – 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
Visit this website to learn more about this plugin:
Compliance Bar – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
Compliance Bar is a simple plugin for WordPress-driven websites containing over twenty customizable legal page templates for your digital presence …
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Legal Suite Pro Plugin
(Legal Suite Pro Plugin 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 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. You can have legal pages 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.
For more details, go here:
If hiring a lawyer to create your online legal documentation is out of your budget, consider implementing some basic type of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal expert.
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 legal page templates, or plugins as described in the section below.
(Legal Pages Generator Software)
Legal Pages Generator Software quickly generates essential legal documents for your website including Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online and the terms of service and guidelines provided by 3rd-party products and services that you may be promoting or using online. Your internet presence must comply with numerous laws and regulatory guidelines, many of which you may not 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 provide no legal advice on our website. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult legal experts to ensure that your website fully complies with the law pertaining to your business.
Resources
Here is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your site to remain compliant 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 – Better Business Bureau
- 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
And …
- 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 legally compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your website using simple and inexpensive resources and solutions.
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