Is your website compliant? Do you know if your site is breaking any rules or regulations, or breaching the Terms of Service (TOS) of any third-party companies whose products or services you are advertising or promoting?
Online laws were designed to protect the rights of consumers and apply to any person who markets, sells or promotes products and services online. Anyone who owns a website risks being sued for not following compliance laws. Feigning ignorance about legal requirements won’t prevent someone from taking legal action against you.
Recent laws introduced in 2014 regulating how businesses promote advertising on their websites clearly state that if you promote anything on your site for profit, then you need to follow certain principles of disclosure to prevent enforceable orders being issued against you by regulatory agencies, such as the Better Business Bureau, also known as BBB. Look up “The Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program,” which regulates behavioral advertising across the internet for more details.
(BBB – Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program)
The new laws affect various online business categories, including:
- Any kind of advertising, including Google AdSense
- Retarget Marketing
- Google Analytics (or other analytics software)
- Affiliate Marketers
- Product Creators
- Bloggers
- etc.
If you do not include certain legal pages on your website (e.g. terms and conditions of use, privacy policy, financial disclaimers, etc.), many third-party sites such as Google won’t let you advertise, sites like ClickBank will not let you list digital products for sale, PayPal could close down your account, Facebook will reject web applications, and you won’t be allowed to enrol in a range of advertising or affiliate marketing networks.
You could also be inadvertently leaving yourself open and vulnerable to expensive litigation.
The purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to legal requirements according to laws that govern businesses online, the importance of remaining compliant with the terms of service of 3rd-party providers whose products or services you may be selling on your website, and that there are easy solutions that can help your site become compliant, such as the plugins that we list further below.
Is Your Website Compliant?
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not lawyers and we are not offering legal advice. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is to make you aware that your website may be subject to certain legal policies in accordance with the laws and regulations governing online business practices and that compliance may be required with the terms of service of third-party providers whose products or services you advertise
Why Making Your Website Compliant Is Important
Is your business at risk? Consider for one minute what would happen to your business if any of the following were to occur:
- A customer has a heart attack after using your online fitness program.
- The skin care creams you sell as an affiliate gives someone an adverse reaction.
- You’ve let your subscribers know that you won’t sell their information, but you have not described exactly what you’ll do with their personal details.
- Someone steals your content and puts it up on their own site.
- You have not divulged to visitors that you are recommending a product as an affiliate and will receive a financial benefit if visitors buy the product through your affiliate link.
- You didn’t spell out the terms and conditions of your refund or return policies.
- Visitors claim that your testimonials are false and decide to sue you.
- You haven’t disclosed that you have received a free copy in a product review.
- Your site includes adult content and you have not taken appropriate measures to restrict access by underaged persons.
Consider now these actual examples of costly compliance breaches:
- A CPA Marketer failed to provide adequate disclaimers telling online users they would be required to give up personal information to complete a debt reduction offer. Cost = $390,000.
- A social networking app developer received a massive $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 UIDs. Many marketers gambled that they could get away with it 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 randomly-chosen websites, more than 90% had infringed at least one of Google’s policies, more than 65% had breached at least 2 of Google’s policies, and more than 40% had breached 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 cautions or lose access to the Google program 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:
- CPA or PPA Marketer
- Network Marketer
- Affiliate Marketer
- AdSense Publisher
- Niche Marketer
- Amazon Associate
- EBay Seller
- Publisher Of Adult Content
- Freelancer, Coach or Consultant
- Seller Of Any Service Or Product Online
You need to make sure that your online business stays fully compliant with the law.
Complying With Third-Party Services - ToS, Policies, etc.
All of the leading websites and government trade regulatory agencies emphasize the need and importance of observing the terms and policies of service providers.
You are expected to let your visitors know that your business complies with legal requirements and recommended guidelines. This not only increases trust and buyer confidence in your website, it’s also a requirement of most companies you will do business with online.
For example:
Google requires websites to display certain information if using many of their services. This includes using features such as Google Analytics …
(Google Analytics – Policy Requirements)
Making money online with your websites with Google AdSense …
(Google AdSense online advertising policy requirements)
Or promoting your products or services via Google AdWords …
(Google AdWords – Policy Requirements)
If you plan to sell information-based products through places such as ClickBank, JVZoo, or other established merchant networks, you are required to add certain legal pages before they will approve your products for sale in their network …
(Policy requirements for using ClickBank)
The Federal Trade Commission also requires you to include clear disclaimers and disclosures to visitors, especially if you plan to use testimonials or product endorsements …
(FTC – consumer policies and regulations)
FTC Regulations – Ensuring That Your Site Is Compliant
FTC regulations governing the conduct of doing business online were introduced in March 2012. Search online and you will see that many websites are unaware (or choose to flaunt) these requirements. As is already the case, this will most likely prompt the FTC to make an example of businesses and prosecute website owners for breaches of regulation in an effort to get other businesses to comply.
If you plan to do any type of money-making activity 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 by ensuring that your site is compliant with FTC guidelines and regulations.
There are many resources websites for businesses that can provide guidelines and examples for structuring disclaimers and disclosures to help you 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 laws and regulations)
Social Media Applications Also Have Compliance Requirements
If you plan to develop apps that will integrate with your website, you will also be required to provide social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and many others with information about various legal pages …
(Social networking apps also require compliance)
- If you are not sure whether you are breaking the law, and/or Terms of Service policies and guidelines of websites like Google, Facebook, etc., then you most probably are.
- If you plan to promote services or products on your site using affiliate marketing, or generate revenue with Google AdSense, ads for eBay or Amazon products, or driving visitors to your site using 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 - don’t risk having your accounts terminated.
- If you have been wondering if “borrowing” a Copyright Notice is Copyright infringement, take proper precautions to avoid becoming a litigation magnet.
(In addition to legal and regulatory compliance, most third-party services require you to comply with their policies)
Basic Legal Pages To Add To Your Website To Ensure Compliance
If you suspect that your web site falls short in aspects of compliance, then you will find this section helpful.
Adding the following compliance pages to your website will help your business keep out of trouble with many consumer protection authorities and 3rd-party providers, and help to avoid possible legal issues):
- About Us
- Contact Page
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Disclaimer Pages
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
In addition to the above, you may want to look into implementing one or more of the following pages:
- Affiliate Agreement (e.g. if you sell products or services through an affiliate program)
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Compensation Disclosure
- External Linking Policy
- Financial Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general money-making information)
- Refund Policy (if you sell products or services online)
- Media Terms (if you provide users with access to download media on your site)
Types Of Disclosure Pages
Adding the correct type of disclosure to your site is important. For example:
- No Material Connection – Lets readers know that you are not receiving any type of compensation for writing the content.
- Affiliate Links – Informs site users that you may receive compensation if they act on your recommendation and purchase through one of your affiliate links.
- Sample Or review Copy – Lets your visitors know that you have received a sample or review copy of the product or service you’re reviewing or writing about by the author or product developer.
- Sponsored Post – Discloses to your readers that you have been compensated in some form to write the post.
- Third Party Advertising – Lets users know that you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.
Adding Legal Pages To Your WordPress Website
Ideally, you will 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.
Uploading Legal Web Pages Manually
If someone prepares and delivers the legal content for you in HTML format, you can simply upload these to your web server, or have someone upload these pages for you.
We recommend adding a legal directory to your web server and uploading your legal pages to this directory (e.g. via FTP) …
(Upload legal pages to your web server via FTP)
You can then easily add links to these legal pages in WordPress using a custom WordPress menu …
(Custom WordPress Menu)
Displaying Legal Web Pages On Your Website
After uploading your legal pages, make sure that these are kept up-to-date and clearly visible to all visitors. You can insert these into the sidebar (or the footer section of your site) so that users can access legal 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 WordPress sidebar using widgets here:
Templates
You can easily find downloadable attorney-drafted website forms and agreements just by searching online, or visiting websites like this one:
Find Legal Forms
For more information, go here:
Another option is to download a set of website legal templates written by legal attorney Scott Talbert to help businesses protect themselves online …
Cut And Paste Website Legal Pages
(Website Legal Pages)
Cut & Paste website legal templates were written by an attorney and 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 templates included in Scott Talbert’s Legal Forms include:
- Anti-Spam Policy
- Copyright Notice
- Disclaimer
- DMCA Compliance
- Federal Trade Commission Compliance (This proprietary FTC page accommodates Federal Trade Commission regulations and guidelines that came into effect in March 2012)
- Privacy Policy: Google & DoubleClick DART, etc.
- Terms of Service (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 the pages to your web server as previously described.
To learn more, go here:
Legal Page Plugins
As well as using cut & paste templates, you can keep things really simple by using plugins.
Here are some legal plugins for WordPress-powered websites and blogs worth looking into:
WP Legal Pages
(WordPress Plugin – WordPress Legal Pages)
If you don’t want to bother with creating legal web pages manually, then consider using a plugin like WordPress Legal Pages instead …
WP Legal Pages is not a free plugin, but it’s an affordable and well-supported premium WordPress plugin that will help simplify the job of creating and implementing legal pages on your site and save you loads of headaches.
Some of the reasons to consider using WordPress Legal Pages are:
- Pre-written Legal 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 a few minutes with just a few clicks of the mouse.
- Fully Customizable Pages – Includes customizable and easy to edit legal form templates (e.g. Terms of Use, Disclaimer, Earnings Disclaimer, Privacy Policy and more!)
- Easy To Edit Pages – WYSIWYG editor lets you edit legal pages like every other WordPress page.
- Custom Shortcodes Integration – Add shortcodes to your pages and the information will be automatically inserted into your pages 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 lockdown. When a user agrees to the terms, the page unlocks.
- Additional Features – New plugin features get added when new versions are released.
When you install WordPress Legal Pages, a new menu item will appear in your navigation menu …
(WordPress Legal Pages – Menu)
This allows you to create, edit and view your legal pages from the admin area …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – Settings Screen)
With WP Legal Pages, you can easily create legal pages for different online uses, such as business websites with products, review websites, medical sites, etc …
(WordPress Legal Pages Plugin For WordPress – Page Type)
You can also choose from various built-in legal templates …
(WP Legal Pages Plugin – 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
Go here to learn more about this useful plugin:
Compliance Bar Plugin – WordPress Plugin For Website Compliance
complete website compliance and disclaimer solution …
More info:
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 – 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 secured rights to high quality, professionally written legal disclaimers and packaged them into a plugin that can be installed quickly on any WordPress site. You can have legal pages installed and set up on your site in less than one minute and the plugin licensing is flexible, allowing you to install and use this plugin on all of your sites (even sites that you decide to sell or flip).
To learn more, visit this site:
If hiring lawyers to create your legal pages is out of your budget, then consider implementing some basic form of legal protection on your site until you can afford a lawyer.
We want your website to be legally protected!
Download the Legal Pages Generator software below (for FREE!), or choose one of the better solutions we discuss in this article, such as using attorney-written legal templates, or a legal pages plugin - see section below.
(Legal Pages Generator)
Legal Pages Generator quickly generates basic legal documents for your website including ToS, Privacy Statement, Copyright Notice, Website Disclaimer and optional Earnings Disclaimer.
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As stated earlier, if you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices and any terms of service (TOS) and guidelines for 3rd-party services and products that you may be promoting or endorsing online. Your internet presence must comply with various regulations, 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 offer no legal advice on this website. You must do your own due diligence and consult legal experts about the best way of ensuring that your website fully complies with all legal requirements pertaining to your business.
References And Resources
Below is a useful list of websites we suggest you visit to better understand what may be required of your website to stay 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
In Addition …
- 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
We hope you have found this article useful and that it has helped you understand the importance of having a compliant website. Use the information provided above to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site using simple and inexpensive methods and resources.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum