Tag: Make WordPress Site Legally Compliant

One of the worst situations you can find yourself in as a website owner is to be on the wrong side of the law.

As the digital way of life continues to grow at breakneck speed and the rules of the game constantly change, it’s vital to stay informed about what’s going on and ensure that your website or blog remains legally compliant, especially if having an online presence is a significant aspect of your business strategy.

Recent laws introduced in 2014 that regulate how businesses promote advertising on their sites state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, you need to follow certain disclosure guidelines to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by consumer protection agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Search online “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.

(Better Business Bureau Website)

These laws has legal ramifications for several business activities, including:

• Any kind of advertising, like contextual advertising
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creation
• Bloggers
• etc.

If you do not display certain legal pages on your web site (e.g. terms of service, privacy statement, legal disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, digital marketplaces like ClickBank or JVZoo won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may close down your account, Facebook could reject web applications, and you will not be allowed to enrol in most advertising and affiliate merchant networks.

More importantly, you may also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to legal action.

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site(s) are subject to certain legal requirements, the importance of maintaining compliance with the terms of service of other providers whose services or products you may be offering on your site, and that there are solutions that can help your online properties become compliant, such as the tools that we discuss further below.

Does Your Website Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: We are not lawyers and we are not providing 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 all legal requirements in your country or region.

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider for a minute what could happen to your business if any of the following were to occur:

• A customer has a cardiac arrest after they use your online fitness program.
• The skin cream you sell as an affiliate marketer gives someone an allergic reaction.
• You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not spelled out exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
• Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own website.
• There is no statement on your site telling visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate that you will derive a sales commission if visitors purchase it.
• You did not spell out the conditions of your return policies.
• Someone claims that the testimonials on your site are all fake and tries to sue you.
• You haven’t disclosed in a product review that you received a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult content and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underage persons.

Consider also these actual case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling visitors they would have to give up their personal information (including credit card information to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer was slapped with 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 Users IDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, costing them thousands of $$$ in lost revenue.
• An independent 2010 study by Brad Geddes of SearchEngineLand, showed that, of a couple of hundred randomly-picked websites, more than 90% were breaking at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% were in breach of 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 notices or lose access entirely 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 easy it is to risk being exposed to litigation through non-compliance?

Regardless of whether you are a:

• CPC (Cost Per Conversion) Marketer
• MLM Networker
• Affiliate Marketer
• AdWords User
• Info Product Marketer
• Amazon Affiliate
• e-Commerce Store Owner
• Adult Content Publisher
• Provider Of Freelance, Coaching Or Consulting Services
• Online Seller Of Any Product Or Service

You need to make sure that your digital presence stays legally compliant.

Compliance With 3rd-Party Services

Compliance with third-party services terms and policies is important.

You are obligated to let your visitors know that your business complies with laws and recommended guidelines. This not only increases consumer trust and buyer confidence in your business, it’s also required in many cases by most companies you will interact with online.

Here are just some examples:

Google requires websites to display legal information when using many of their services. This includes using Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Generating revenue with your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense …

(Google AdSense advertising policy requirements)

Or promoting your business through Google AdWords …

(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)

If you plan to sell information products using companies like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established online merchant sites, you are required to add a number of legal pages before your products can be approved for sale …

(Policy requirements for selling products via ClickBank)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires that you add clear disclaimers and statements on your site, especially if you plan to sell products or services online using product testimonials or endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Website Is Compliant

FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. A quick search online will reveal that many websites are still unaware (or choose to ignore) these requirements. As is already the case, this typically ends up with the FTC making an example of businesses and prosecuting website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.

If you plan to do any kind of business online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business does not operate in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business interests by making sure that your website complies with FTC regulations.

There are many resources online that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you meet FTC requirements. We provide a number of references at the end of this article …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of laws and regulations)

Social Media Applications Also Require Compliance

If you plan to develop social networking applications for your website users, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others require you to provide information about various legal pages …

(Facebook developer app – policy requirements)

• 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., then assume that you most probably are.
• If you plan to promote anything online via affiliate marketing, or monetizing your pages with Google AdSense, Amazon, or eBay advertising, 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 all Terms Of Service and policy requirements - don’t risk having your accounts suspended.
• If you’ve been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.

(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, almost all third-party websites require you to comply with their terms of use and policies)

Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Site To Ensure Compliance

If your web site lacks in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.

At its most basic, adding the following legal pages to your website should keep your business out of trouble with many regulatory authorities and third-party service providers, and even help to avoid potential legal issues):

• About Us Page
• Contact Page
• Privacy Statement
• Terms Of Use
• Disclaimers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing any of these pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Financial Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general money-making information)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site)

Types Of Disclosure Pages

Adding the right disclosure information to your website is important. For example:

• No Material Connection – Lets visitors be aware that you’re not receiving any form of compensation for writing the article.
• Affiliate Links – Notifies your readers that you may benefit financially if they act on your recommendation and buy through your affiliate links.
• Review Or Sample Copy – Informs site users that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re writing about by the author or product developer.
• Sponsored Post – Discloses to visitors that you have been compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Informs users 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 display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Compliance Pages To Your WordPress Website

Ideally, you will consult your lawyer and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once you have this, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Upload Legal Pages Manually

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 adding a legal folder to your server and uploading HTML pages containing your legal documentation to this directory via FTP …

(Upload legal pages to your web server using FTP)

You can then easily add links to your legal pages from your WordPress site using custom links in your menu admin area …

(WordPress Menu)

Where To Display Legal Pages On Your Site

Make sure that your legal pages are up-to-date and clearly visible to all site visitors. You can add these to the sidebar menu (or place them in the footer of your site) so that visitors will be able to access the information from every page …

(Display links to your legal pages on all of your site’s pages)

We have written a detailed tutorial on displaying links to pages on your sidebar and footer menu using widgets here:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Blog

Store-Bought Legal Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com – Attorney-prepared legal forms)

To learn more, visit this site:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of website legal templates designed by legal attorney Scott Talbert …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Website Legal Pages)

These templates were created by an attorney and feature less passive voice and more plain language phrasing and can be customized with a quick search and replace to add your own business details, then pasted into your legal pages.

The legal templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Form Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• FTC Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new FTC regulations brought into effect on March 2012)
• Privacy Policy
• ToS & Conditions of Use.

You can either create a new page for each legal form you want to add to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload these to your web server as previously described.

To learn more, visit this site:

• Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

WordPress Legal Plugins

As well as using legal templates, another option is to use WordPress plugins.

Here are some great legal plugins for WordPress users worth looking into:

WP Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages)

If the idea of manually creating legal pages for your website feels too time-consuming for you, then consider choosing a plugin like WP Legal Pages instead …

This is not a free plugin, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will make the task of creating and implementing legal pages on your WordPress site a lot easier and save you many headaches.

Some of the benefits of using the WordPress Legal Pages are:

• Pre-written Templates – Includes over 20 built-in legal page templates created by professional lawyers.
• Very Quick And Easy To Use – Set up most of your basic legal pages in around 3 minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and editable legal form templates (e.g. Terms Of Service, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages just like any other page on your website.
• Shortcodes – Add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information will then be automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. The plugin lets you exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page or post lock down. When users agree to the terms, the page unlocks.
• New Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.

After installing WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your main dashboard section …

(WordPress Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Settings Area)

You can create legal pages for different types of sites, such as business websites, review websites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Create different legal pages)

Select from several pre-configured legal templates …

(WP Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Pre-configured Legal 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 WordPress plugin, visit this site:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance

The Compliance Bar Plugin is a complete compliance and disclaimer solution for your site …

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro

(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 of Service
• Earnings Disclaimer

(Legal Suite Pro – 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 one minute or less and the license allows you to install and use this plugin on all of your websites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).

Go here to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro

If using the services of legal experts to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic kind of legal protection on your website until you can afford professional assistance.

We want your site to be legally safe!

Download the FREE Legal Pages Generator software below, or use one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal forms, or plugins as described in the section below.

(Legal Pages Generator Software)

Legal Pages Generator Software lets you quickly generate basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Policy, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and Earnings Disclaimer.

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As we’ve previously pointed out, if you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies and the guidelines and terms of service provided by 3rd-party sites that you may be promoting or selling online. Your website must comply with a wide range of regulations, many 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, please note that we are not lawyers and we provide no legal advice. We strongly advise you to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert to ensure that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.

Additional Information

Below is a time-saving list of additional sites we suggest you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your site to comply 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
• 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
• United States Copyright Office

Additionally …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand why it’s important to have a compliant website. Use the information presented above to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website.

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