Tag: Make WordPress Site Legally Compliant

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

As the internet continues growing at an extraordinary rate and the rules of the game keep changing, it’s absolutely essential that you try to stay on top of what’s happening and make sure that your website remains legal, especially if your digital presence is important in the success of your overall business strategy.

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

(Better Business Bureau – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)

The new laws affect various business categories, including:

• Any type of advertising, e.g. text link advertising, Google Adsense, etc.
• Retarget Marketing
• Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Product Creators
• Blogging
• etc.

If your website does not display certain legal pages (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy statement, earning disclaimers, etc.), many sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, online merchants like ClickBank won’t allow you to list digital products, PayPal may suspend your account, Facebook will reject your applications, and you will not be allowed into a range of advertising and affiliate marketing networks.

If your online business is not in compliance, you could also face a multitude of penalties, including fines, having your website shut down, even jail time!

The purpose of this article is to help make you aware that your site(s) are subject to legal requirements according to laws that govern business practices online, the importance of complying with the terms of service of other providers whose products or services you may be offering on your site, and that there are plugin-based solutions for WordPress users that can help your sites become fully compliant, such as the tools discussed further below.

Does Your Website Comply With The Law?

Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we cannot provide legal advice about your website or business. As stated previously, the purpose of this article is only to help make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal requirements in accordance with the laws governing business and that you may be required to comply with the terms of service of companies whose products or services you advertise

Why It’s Important To Make Your Website Compliant

Are you at risk? Consider what the implications to your business would be if these scenarios were to happen:

• Someone has a heart attack after purchasing your online fitness workout.
• The skin care lotion you sell as an affiliate marketer gives a number of users allergic reactions.
• You’ve told subscribers that you won’t sell their information, but you haven’t clearly informed them what you plan to do with their personal details.
• Someone copies your content and puts it up on their site.
• There is no statement on your website making your site users aware that you are an affiliate for the product you are marketing and will derive a financial benefit if they decide to purchase using your link.
• You don’t spell out the terms of your refund policies.
• Someone claims that your testimonials are false and decides to sue you because of it.
• You didn’t disclose in a product review that you were given a free copy of the product.
• Your website contains adult-related information and you did not take sufficient measures to restrict access by underaged persons.

Consider too the following real case studies of costly compliance breaches:

• A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up their personal information (including credit card details to complete his offer. Cost = $390,000.
• A social networking app developer received a massive $800,000 fine for collecting personal information from mobile device address books without the owners’ knowledge and consent – including storing children’s private details.
• Facebook’s Terms Of Service does not allow users to scrape UIDs. Many marketers took a risk and lost. Their accounts were shut down, resulting 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 breach of at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% were in breach of 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 notices or lose access to the Google program they had violated, which could result in loss of income (e.g. AdSense or AdWords).

Can you see how easy it is to risk becoming exposed to litigation?

Regardless of whether you are a:

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

It’s imperative to ensure that your digital presence is fully compliant with the law.

Complying With 3rd-Party Services

Big companies and government agencies that regulate trade emphasize the need of complying with the terms and policies of third-party service providers.

You are expected to let your visitors know that your website complies with legal requirements and professional guidelines. This not only improves consumer trust and confidence in your website, it’s also required by most companies you engage with.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

Google requires your site to display certain information if using their products or features. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …

(Policy requirements for using Google Analytics)

Earning revenue with your WordPress blogs with Google AdSense display advertising …

(Google AdSense online advertising - policy requirements)

And even promoting your business through Google AdWords …

(Policy requirements for using Google AdWords)

If you sell information products using merchants like ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant sites, you are required to add various legal pages to your site before they will approve your products for selling via their network …

(ClickBank – policy requirements for vendors)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also requires you to include clear disclaimers and policy statements on your website, especially when concerning the use of testimonials or product endorsements …

(Federal Trade Commission – consumer policies and regulations)

FTC Regulations Require Your Site 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 ignore) these requirements. As has already been 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 plan to do any kind of selling online, therefore, it’s best not to take any chances. Even if your business is not physically located in the U.S. we strongly recommend protecting your business by making sure that your website is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.

There are many online business resources that can provide guidelines on how to structure disclaimers and disclosures to help your site comply with FTC requirements. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information …

(Word your disclaimers and disclosures correctly to avoid running foul of the law)

Don’t Forget Social Media Applications

If you are planning to develop social networking applications for your site users, you will also be required to provide sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others with access to various legal pages …

(Apps that integrate with social networking sites like Facebook also require compliance)

• If you are unsure as to whether or not you may be 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 products or services on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for Amazon or eBay products, or driving visitors to your website with Google AdWords, etc., then find out exactly what kind of legal information you need 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 been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, then it’s best to act now and take proper precautions to protect yourself and your business interests.

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

What Legal Information Should I Add To My Site To Be Compliant?

If your website lacks in areas of compliance, then this section will help you.

Adding the following legal pages to your website will help your site stay out of trouble with many regulatory agencies and external providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):

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

In addition to the pages above, you may want to consider including one or more of these compliance pages:

• Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you provide an affiliate program)
• Anti-Spam Policy
• Compensation Disclosure
• External Linking Policy
• Health Disclaimers (if your website or blog provides general health or medical advice)
• Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
• Use Of Media (if you allow media downloads on your site)

Disclosure Pages – Types

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

• No Material Connection – Informs site users that you are not receiving compensation for writing the content.
• Affiliate Links – Lets your readers know that you will receive compensation if they buy through one of your affiliate links.
• Review/Sample Copy – Explains to readers that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service by the author or developer.
• Sponsored Post – Disclosure that lets users know that you were compensated in some form to write the content.
• Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to satisfy the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring online publishers to display prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

How To Add Legal Content To Your Site

Ideally, you will consult lawyers or a legal firm and ask them to prepare the verbiage of your legal documents. Once these have been done, there are several ways to include them in your website.

Uploading Legal Pages To Your Site

If someone prepares and delivers the legal verbiage for you in standard web page formatting (e.g. HTML), you can simply upload these to your server, or have someone upload these pages for you.

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

(Create a ‘legals’ folder in your server and upload pages via FTP)

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

(WordPress Menu)

After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to your visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or place them in the footer section of your site) so that visitors can access legal information from every web page …

(It’s important to display links to your legal information on all of your site’s pages)

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

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Sidebar

Templates

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

Find Legal Forms

(FindLegalForms.com)

Go here to learn more:

• FindLegalForms.com

Another option is to download a package of website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …

Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages

(Cut & Paste Website Legal Pages – Legal Templates)

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

The legal forms included in Scott Talbert’s Website Legal Page Templates include:

• Anti-Spam Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Disclaimer (multi-discipline professional disclaimers)
• DMCA Compliance
• Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page reflects new Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
• Privacy Policy: Google, etc.
• 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 WordPress page for every legal form you want added to your website, then paste the content from the templates into your pages and publish or upload the pages to your server as previously described.

More information:

• Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages

Plugins – Legal Pages

In addition to using templates, you can simplify things using WordPress plugins.

Here are some plugins for WordPress sites that you should check out:

WordPress Legal Pages

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress)

If you don’t want to spend time creating legal pages manually, then consider using WP Legal Pages …

The WP Legal Pages plugin is not free, but it’s a very low-priced and well-supported premium plugin that will help make the work 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 plugin:

• Built-in 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 a few minutes with just a few mouse clicks.
• Customizable Pages – The plugin includes fully customizable and completely editable legal form templates (e.g. ToS, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
• Easy To Edit Pages – WordPress content editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WordPress page.
• Custom Shortcodes – You can add shortcodes to any of your website or blog pages and the information is then automatically inserted into your content when published.
• Exclude pages. Exclude pages from menus with a simple check box and delete and manage these like any other page on your website.
• Forced Options – Force page lock down. Page unlocks when users agree to your terms.
• Additional Features – More features get added to this plugin with every new version.

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

(WP Legal Pages – Legal Pages Menu)

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

(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings)

The plugin gives you the option to create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, affiliate/review sites, e-commerce sites, etc …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin – Page Type)

Choose from a number of built-in legal templates …

(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – 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 this great plugin, visit the plugin site:

• WP Legal Pages Plugin

Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Compliance Plugin

Compliance Bar is a complete compliance & disclaimer solution for your digital presence …

For an in-depth review of this plugin go here:

• Compliance Bar Plugin – Compliance Plugin For WordPress

Legal Suite Pro Plugin

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

Visit this site to learn more:

• Legal Suite Pro Plugin

If using the services of lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing at least some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford to hire the services of a legal firm.

We want your site to be protected!

Download the Legal Pages Generator tool below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using ready-made legal documents, or plugins - see section below.

(Legal Pages Generator)

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

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As stated earlier, if you make money online, it’s important that your website complies with all government legal requirements and the terms of service (TOS) and guidelines provided by 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or using online. Your digital presence must comply with a number 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, we are not lawyers and we are not providing legal advice in this article. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence and consult a legal expert about the best way to ensure that your website is compliant with all legal requirements pertaining to your specific business.

References And Resources

Below is a useful list of websites we recommend you visit to help you better understand what may be required of your website to comply and meet 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 …

• 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

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information above to quickly add essential legal pages to your WordPress website using simple methods and solutions.

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